


That Day of Infamy

by Kount_Xero



Series: The Sorceress War [11]
Category: Final Fantasy VIII
Genre: Gen, Series Finale, That Day of Infamy, The Sorceress War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-09
Updated: 2019-08-16
Packaged: 2020-08-13 22:00:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 18
Words: 48,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20181397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kount_Xero/pseuds/Kount_Xero
Summary: On that day, everything was won and everything was lost.  More than two decades after that day of infamy, after the downfall, the spectre of the Second Sorceress War will come to haunt the last of the Fated Children... and bring with it the truth of their sacrifice. (Series finale.)





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This story starts between the 16th and 17th chapters of "Elegy" and moves beyond it. In many ways, "That Day of Infamy" is "Elegy, Part II." The reason for the split is, the storyline just didn't hold together as a singular one, so it split.
> 
> "That Day of Infamy" concludes "The Sorceress War" series. Please enjoy.
> 
> ...and if you have read all of it, I salute you.

**(The First Three Hours.)**

**(Day -2)**

* * *

Brea stepped out onto the front entrance and lit up a cigarette. She pressed her back to the wall. Under the bright spotlights of the Ragnarok, she felt slighted, humbled. Beyond the light, just as small silhouettes, she could see a few curious, but still cautious, civilians glaring her way. She ignored them. They looked like background decorations to her. Just a parade, an endless parade; like the one that was held in this very city twenty-five years ago, where dancers had heralded the opening salvoes of a war... a war that had consumed everyone, engulfing all in the unending barrage of death and destruction that it had wrought. That they had wrought.

The memory of the parade was still fresh in her mind and Brea knew that this was a residual effect. The pooled past of the Sorceress, a chaotic mess of memories, reaching all the way back to King Zebalga’s tent and returning to the now: the Presidential Palace of the city Brea had seen destroyed once already was coming alive inside her. Her head was already throbbing and the first cigarette wasn’t helping. Maybe the second would. She lit it, cigarette-to-cigarette, and felt her throat burn.

Before her eyes, she saw Deling City burned to ashes, unraveled brick by brick in the sweeping wave of pure destruction. A flash and the vision was gone in the smoke, swirling into the air, as if it had been an illusion. An echo of a war gone by, not the promise of one over the horizon.

There was a warning in the back of her mind, repeating with increasing desperation that SeeD was the enemy. All understood and all agreed. All except Brea, who knew that her uniform separated her from the rest of them. She wasn’t a power-hungry tyrant... yet, anyway. There was that aspect of being a Sorceress and the need of a Knight – the longevity, the power of pure magic, it all made too much sense to not corrupt. As Brea smoked, she thought about the bystanders and already there was her apprehension towards them, a sense of detached chill.

She knew that was no longer one of them.

She glanced at the double doors. One was standing ajar. Inside, Jacen Onesson was writing his confession. Once it was done, he’d be locked up in solitary confinement in the Garen brig. They would notify his vice, Olga Sevron if Brea remembered. A stocky woman with brilliant blue eyes and a pixie haircut. A humanitarian at heart. A rarity in this world.

But the night wouldn’t be over with that. Brea knew that she was just in the first three hours of what promised to be a long, protracted epitaph. A war of attrition with existence itself.

It would all start with their next step. The Last Will and Testament of Squall Leonhart.

“Well...” she said to herself, “Here’s to his last command.”

There was completeness in that. Peace. Ephemeral, but in that moment, all Brea wanted to do was sleep. The only thing keeping her where she was the small vid-disk in the side pocket of her jacket, the last gift of her predecessor and her final act.


	2. The Last Will and Testament of Squall Leonhart

**1 DAY AFTER THE DEATH OF SQUALL LEONHART**

**(Day -1)**

* * *

It was past midnight but not quite to the dawn. It was already dark in Esthar, and with the absence of the honeycomb shield, the spectral darkness made its presence felt. The night sky above seemed like a shallow backdrop with all the warm lights flooding the General’s Office, considered by those assembled as _his office _for better or worse; and the hum of Ocean Garden that oozed into the solemn silence was almost malleable. They were all weary, most of them running on very little sleep and Ellone with a rushed hovercraft trip on top of the news that had been given to her by a wistful cadet on her roof. She was the only one of those present who was not a soldier and at that moment, she had her black heels in her hands, dangling from the index and middle fingers of her right hand.

She had been told to dress for a funeral, and so she had. The dress she was in had accompanied her throughout the twenty-five some odd years since the Second War. It had been mended a few times, but still, it was the same dress and the same shoes. Always the same dress, for the same pain.

Brea stared at the console. Quistis, Seifer and Ellone waited for her to make the move. As the successor, it fell to her as part of her duty. Quistis noted that she seemed hesitant, in a way that she had never seen the sharpshooter hesitant before. It reminded her of how Squall had told her about Irvine’s last-minute jitters, twenty-five years ago and during the Deling parade.

The reflective, black surface of the console was blank, save for a square outlined in green.

**THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT OF SQUALL LEONHART**

She knew why, as did the others. If Brea just reached forward and pressed her palm against the allotted square, it would all come to an end. Seifer couldn’t help but feel just a bit cathartic at the thought that this would be history in the making. The end, or better put, the agonizing downfall of an era that could have, and maybe had, brought down an entire nation with it.

Ellone, cold and alone in the company of soldiers as she had ever been, just wished she did not have to bear witness, but how to tell them everything, she wasn’t sure.

Brea straightened her back and reached forward. She pressed her palm on the console. The console whirred as it scanned her palm and when it was done, the projector came to life. A rectangular hologram appeared in front of them, hovering in the air. They found themselves looking into the tired, cold eyes of Squall Leonhart.

His voice filled the room and their ears couldn’t hear any other sound once he began.

_“I, Squall Leonhart, Grand Master of Ocean Garden, revoke my former wills and codicils and declare this to be my Last Will and Testament. In accordance to the Garden Law, this official declaration can only be accessed by my officially declared successor. Also according to the Garden Law, it can only be viewed by those equal to me in rank, with the exception of my officially declared successor and my next of kin on file.”_

Brea leaned back and crossed her arms. Her brow furrowed.

_“Also according to the Garden Law, the commands issued in this Last Will and Testament will be obeyed to the letter on pain of death by those present or named thusly.”_

“Conducting from beyond the grave.” Seifer chuckled bitterly, “What a mindfuck.”

_“First and foremost, I hereby promote Seifer Almasy and Quistis Trepe to the rank of Grand Master, and Brea Willings to that of Garden Master, effective immediately. Brea Willings is to register a successor in the system within the week and no later.”_

Quistis shook her head. She had expected as much.

_“Secondly, I leave the rights to the properties that I hold to be equally distributed, liquidated or otherwise, between Quistis Trepe, Seifer Almasy, Brea Willings and Ellone Loire, with the sole exception of the pub in Winhill, now Old Hill, which I leave to Ellone Loire in its entirety.”_

Ellone’s eyes widened. Brea heard the faint sound of her heels hitting the carpet as Ellone brought her hands to her mouth, trying to keep herself calm.

_“A posthumous stipend will be paid to Ellone Loire in the amount of 25% of my annual salary, which she must collect until her death. She can choose to have the stipend transfred to a person, organization or entity of her choosing if so ordered in her Last Will and Testament, and under no condition other than her death."_

They saw him exhale. He hung his head for a moment. When he looked up again and into the lens of the recorder, they saw that something had changed.

_“That said, there is something you all should know.”_

The console came to life and displayed a link next to another palm scan box:

**THE ELLONE CONTINGENCIES**

_“Ever since..._” a flash of pain in his face, a twitch in his stare that they all caught. He took a deep beath, steeled himself, and got through it, _“Well, ever since Selphie’s miscarriage, I have understood that the world, despite our firm grip on it, still has surprises to offer. It’s not about keeping ourselves strong or keeping our guard up. It’s about what can happen. There are some conflicts and some things that we can’t anticipate. Despite this, I have tried to come up with scenarios we are likely to encounter; things that we must plan for lest we get caught up in an otherwise foreseeable crisis. Most of our power and influence are safeguards to keep us in a position to do what we were meant to and fight the Sorceress, yes, but there are also those that allow us to operate freely in the world. That said, I have spent the last few years coming up with these plans that you are now free to browse. You, and nobody else. It’s **imperative** that these are kept a secret... because if I ever implement one, especially number zero, the fallout from the fact that this was premeditated will be catastrophic. So for that reason, I will explain.”_

The folder expanded and before their eyes formed a tree of folders, main branches spreading out like cracks across the screen, each folder marked with a possible scenario. They all watched as Squall’s visions of the future, each one bleak and each one leading them through battles they were yet to fight, disasters they were yet to drown in.

_“Ellone Contingency Zero is based on the worst case scenario: that Esthar comes to be governed by a Sorceress... or simply turns against us. So far, due to my father’s influece, the Tripartite Treaties and other, similar accords, we have been able to keep Esthar on our side, but there is always a chance that this won’t last. With that in mind, I have come up with a plan to deal with them quickly and decisively. However, the fallout from the execution of this plan is **massive.** In simple terms, it means utterly crippling Esthar, rendering them completely dependent on us for an extended period of time. However, Ellone Contingency Zero is also the best scenario because of one particular extension of it."_

* * *

Olga Sevron tried to keep her head high as she walked down the entrance to the Presidential Palace. Flanked on both sides by SeeD, she had to admit that their presence was a little more than just intimidating. She had had ample time in her career to witness their combat skills first-hand, including an incident where the monsters of the Island Closest to Hell had hit a coast city. The clean-up they had performed had exceeded even her best expectations.

However, as she was led by Brea Willings into the Palace, she wasn’t so sure that she wasn’t about to witness their talents first-hand.

She had gotten the call just an hour and a half ago and a droning pencil-pusher of the bureaucratic machine had told her congratulations. She was now the interim President of Galbadia. There had been little time to ask or even adequately weigh the implications of this promotion as she had been called to a meeting a mere half hour after she had debated whether to go back to bed or to get dressed. Her choice had been made when Brea Willings had paid her a personal call and had introduced herself as the Ocean Garden Master.

The full weight of that rank had woken her up completely. It could mean one of two things: either she had just been promoted, or, the more likely scenario, Squall Leonhart was dead. This meant that the meeting she had been called to could have been about one thing, and one thing only: his Last Will and Testament.

Presently, Olga was led up the stairs, followed by the eerie eyes of past presidents, a long line that ended with the outline of a portrait where dust had accumulated. She knew that that spot had belonged to Jacen Onesson until yesterday.

They came to a stop and stood before the double doors leading into the President’s Office. Brea knocked on the door, and Olga found herself surprised that it had taken them this long to bring her there, after all. The doors opened and as Olga entered, she saw Seifer Almasy and Quistis Trepe stand up, the latter leaning heavily onto her cane. It wasn’t an injury, Olga knew – she was just weary. The grandfather clock in the corner indicated that it was little past 10 PM.

“Madame President.” Quistis gave her the slightest of nods. Brea went around them and stood behind the President’s desk, next to the chair that Olga knew was waiting for her. She also spotted a stack of papers on the desk, right next to an ink blotter and a fountain pen. Great. First act as interim president and it would be a capitulation. How novel.

“Garden Master Trepe.” Olga said, clasping her hands in front of her.

“Correction.” Seifer said, clacking his tongue, “That’s Garden _Grand_ Master, now. For both of us.”

Olga raised an eyebrow, but recovered quickly, “Well... congratulations on your promotion. And I’m sorry for your loss.”

“All prim and proper.” Seifer mocked.

“There is an urgent matter, Madame President.” Brea said, her hands behind her back, “It can’t wait. I suggest you take your seat so that we may begin.”

Olga walked around the desk and sat down. She glanced at the papers in front of her. She read the first line.

**THE TILMITT PACT**

Olga looked at both Quistis and Seifer as they sat down. Two SeeDs closed the doors to the office.

“You will sign that.” Brea said, “Now.”

“I will not sign anything I haven’t read.” Olga said, fishing out her reading glasses from the side pocket of her jacket, “I am sure you will allow me that much.”

“Feel free.” Quistis said, “Just, please, keep in mind that you don’t have a choice in signing it.”

Olga sighed. There it was.

“According to Galbadian Law,” Quistis said, “The Last Will and Testament of the Grand Master allows him to give a direct order to the President. Only one order and it may contain only one command, and it is to be obeyed, regardless of what it is. His order is for you to sign that.”

“And if I refuse?” Olga asked.

In a flash, Brea’s pistol was pressed against her temple.

“I will kill you.” She said, her voice cold enough to make Quistis shiver, “Then, I will go to your house. There, I will kill your husband and son.”

Olga choked the sudden rise of fear with feigned disappointment, “There is no need for the theatrics, General Willings.”

“Actually, that is _Master_ Willings to you, Madame President.” Brea said, and she cocked back the hammer with her thumb, “And this is not a show. This is his last command, and I will see it obeyed... at any cost. Any cost at all.”

Olga shot her a sideways look. “You would, wouldn’t you?” she said, “You goddamn tyrant.”

“Be that as it may.” Brea said.

“I said, I will not-“

“Then read it.” Brea said.

Olga did. She did not stall or play for time, she went through it as she would any other document. The gun barrel left her temple, but Brea kept her hand on it, ready to draw in a moment’s notice. The room kept its silence and the sound of the grandfather clock in the corner was all that disturbed the peace.

Olga put down the papers when she had understood the gist of it. In half an hour, her speed-reading skills had given her what she would be signing off on and the clarity of the document left little room for speculation.

“And you want me to sign this?” she asked.

“Fucking Hyne, seriously?” Seifer snapped, “Look, lady, I’m happy just to let her shoot you and get to whoever the fuck’s next. I seriously am.”

“Seifer.” Quistis shook her head, “The long and short of it is, Madame President: you are duty bound to sign.”

“Haven’t we paid enough for your grab for power?” Olga asked, throwing caution in the wind, “The war that made your name was twenty five years ago! Haven’t we-“

“You answer me this, goddamn it...” Quistis said, “...have you paid for the sins of Vinzer Deling? How about those of Fury Caraway? Or Sorceress Rinoa? Have you paid for the sins of Jacen Onesson? Because we did. For every one of them and more. Every time you felt like Dollet was up for grabs, we bled for _your_ power trip. There are worse things out there than a sorceress, Olga. Far, far worse things. Things like us."

"At least you admit it." Olga said.

"Bottom line." Quistis said, "The only way to salvage the situation that we are all in right now is for you to sign that. Which you have to.”

“...and by doing so, I will subordinate myself to the will of the Ocean Garden.” Olga crossed her arms.

“No.” Brea said, “There will be a council. Five representatives each from Galbadia, Esthar, the Dukedom, Balamb and Fisherman’s Horizon. A small parliament, but decisions will have to be made quickly and we have little time or room for politicking.”

Olga huffed dismissively, “But both the Galbadia Garden, and our armed forces will be brought under your command,”

Seifer nodded. "Pretty much."

“Yes.” Quistis said, “Ocean Garden will be the sole force on the planet with the power of the legitimate use of force. Believe me, it will be necessary.”

“The funny thing is,” Seifer said, “Both Jacen Onesson and Elise Galloway separately made their moves to prevent this from happening. Because of what they did, it’s inevitable now. Talk about a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

Olga couldn’t argue with that. With a heavy heart, she took the fountain pen from where it was and signed her name on the line.

“Enjoy your kingdom, while it lasts.” She said to the legends assembled, “For, as we all know, Ultimecia will deal with you, in the end.”

Quistis took the documents away from the desk, “I saw her try.” she said, “And her failure is still assured, Madame President.” 

* * *

He looked so handsome and so at peace, wearing his pure white ceremonial uniform. The medals on his chest, replicas of the originals, gleamed. They had all been polished to perfection. The scar on his face and the other, small scars decorating his nearly-shaven head all only accentuated his shapely scalp and the islands of gray shining through a sea of chestnut.

Standing beside him now as she was was a privilege, she knew, reserved for only and only the next of kin. She knew that the others had already come and they had left. Under the dim, orange lighs of the preparation chamber, laid out on the stone slab was her brother, his eyes closed and his handsome face relaxed. He looked like he was sleeping; dreaming perhaps, of better times, of happier days that he barely remembered. The days spent wavestanding or bonfires on the beach. A childhood, not unsullied, but still pure and untouched by the ravages of time and war.

Her hand brushed across his hair, feeling every strand bend ever-so-slightly to her touch.

Tears flowed freely, dripping down onto cold marble and she barely kept her sobbing at bay. With one hand presed against her mouth, she leaned against the slab and wept, crying a small requiem for what she had lost. But he was there, right there and in not too long, he would become nothing but ashes and memory.

But for now, she still had her little brother.

His voice was still ringing in her ear, echoing in her mind. The hint of infinite sadness, of unimaginable sorrow and complete resignation in his tone. The words, etched forever into her recollection, signifying a loss far greater than the one she felt in her heart at that moment.

The loss that she shared, but not like he would.

_"I really miss dad."_

How to put into words the sense of longing in that sentence, the sense of embitterment that had led him on? How to express what he had, in his most private moment, shared with her?

_"I didn’t think I could... or would. He wasn’t there when I was growing up... he wasn’t even a person back then. He was an idea. The man that abandoned me and you. And then he was there... and now he is gone."_

How appropriate, the words, because now, after years and years of keeping the company of soldiers, where was she?

_"I think he loved the man he thought I would be, in the end. Hoped I would be."_

But she had loved him ever since he was a small boy, understanding nothing of the world that had taken from him everything that he would come to miss... even without knowing what they were or how they felt. He had spent his entire life torn between his desire to deny himself the intimacy of others and desperately longing for them.

What had it all added up to, in the end?

Just one sentence that had broken her heart.

_"I really miss dad."_

How to tell the others everything, now that everyting was gone?

How to tell them that here, lying silently on the slab was a vision of how everything ended?

How to tell them that this time, she had seen the future instead of the past and had found it just as unchangable?

How to tell them anything, really, because she didn’t have the words herself?

She was standing there in her black dress, a civilian who had always stayed in the sidelines of the quarter-century war that he had waged. Always with soldiers but always away from their fight. Even she, in that moment, felt the years weighing down on her shoulders, the passage of time marked in losses suffered and uneasy dreams constantly pulling her to happier times: the tapestry of her existence, riddled with bullet holes.

She was tired of war. Her mind was tired of war. Of misery and pain. Of everything that had led him to lie there, his eyes closed, at peace at last and gone; and what he had left in his wake, she knew, amounted to nothing more than misery and pain - like a wound inflicted upon the world as revenge, as payback for having wounded him.

His legacy was a gash in the fabric of the world and history itself.

To her, none of it mattered. Ellone had just lost her baby brother, and that was the only thing in her world that was certain.


	3. Demobilization

**2 DAYS AFTER THE DEATH OF SQUALL LEONHART**

**(Day 0)**

* * *

“May the Strong God bless us,” the Chaplain, standing on the other side of the casket said, “,those still with the gift of life forgive us our trespasses, deliver us from darkness.”

The funeral of Squall Leonhart was a family affair. Only Ellone, Brea, Quistis and Seifer were in attendance. The Chaplain, both unused to seeing the living legends together and burdened by having to bury two of them at the same time, nevertheless kept the faith in a way none in attendance thought possible. The procession was quiet, almost resigned. The crematorium’s eerie hum that accompanied their stillness made it appear more morbid than anything in the Gospels, the Chaplain knew. Beyond the crematorium was the Hall of Martrys and deep in the catacombs, the Wall of the Fated Children. It had three spots left in it now, one for each assembled and whether they would go there sooner or latter mattered very little.

In the end, they all would.

“And the Strong God surrendered his skin unto King Zebalga,” the Chaplain continued, “And said unto him: ‘Lo, I had sent you as sheep amidst the wolves, and now you return to me more wolf than sheep, and your war is won. I give you this boon in recognition of your victory, and forever will your name be...’”

Brea interrupted. “ ‘And to each a gift, may it bountiful be. To each a boon, and may it fruitful prove, and prosperity provide. This I give unto thee for thee has my body and so my wounds, my dreams and my prophecy that thee is like the world and so like the world thee breathes and beholds the splendor that is the essence of all things.’”

Seifer and Quistis glared at her. The Witches’ Revelations.

“Ahem...” the Chaplain shifted nervously, “Not quite what I had in mind.”

“It’s what they died for.” Brea said, “It’s what we live for. I thought it more appropriate.”

“You are not wrong, of course, sir.” The Chaplain said with a slight, if nervous smile, “It’s just not what I had in mind, that is all.”

“Quite alright.” Quistis said, “Please, continue.”

“I don’t think there is any more need, sir.” The Chaplain said, “The essence of all things, but the Gospels never clarify what it actually is. Is it life? Is it...”

“Peace is ephemeral. War is forever.” Brea said, “It’s war. The struggle to exist.”

“It is what we are taught, yes.” The Chaplain said, “So perhaps the essence of all things is war; and if so, for them, it is over. They have ended theirs as soldiers would.”

“Ours continues.” Brea said, “We are not yet over and we are not yet won. Neither were they. They were casualties.”

“Aren’t we all, then?” the Chaplain compromised.

Seifer gave Quistis a look, as if to ask, _What’s with her?_

Quistis shrugged, _I have no idea._

Ellone was weeping silently, beside.

* * *

Ellone bent down to take off her shoes. The heels were starting to hurt, as they always did at the end of a funeral. She wasn’t sure it was because of the shoes themselves, but rather the weight of the dead.

“Elle.”

Ellone turned and saw Quistis, the second one to leave the Hall of Martyrs, coming through with her cane in her hand. Ellone wiped her tears and thanked Hyne for not wearing any make-up.

“It was nice.” She said, “Despite Brea’s choice of quote.”

“Yeah,” Quistis scratched her head, “I’m curious about that myself. You’re leaving?”

Ellone nodded. “Yes. If you don’t need anything else.”

Quistis saw the offer that was now on the table. She considered it for a moment. But what possible consolation could she derive from re-living moments from the life of someone she had fought and died with? The sum of his life couldn’t be found in the recesses of long-forgotten memories or anecdotal recollection, she knew, but in living memory instead.

“Hey, Elle,” Seifer came to join them, “All packed?”

“I didn’t. I don’t. Not for funerals.” Ellone said.

“Yeah, hear ya.” Seifer sighed and stuck his hands in his pants pockets, “Look at us. Last ones standing.”

“What was that back there?” Ellone asked.

“What, Brea?” Seifer shrugged, “I think she feels all this a little more... keenly than she lets on, let’s say.”

“Keenly?” Ellone raised an eyebrow.

“Oh Hyne, not like _that_.” Quistis said, “What is it that makes everyone think that?”

“In a way, she’s like a stray.” Seifer said and elicited an elbow to the ribs from his wife, “Ow! That hurt.”

“It was supposed to.”

Ellone couldn’t help but smile, just a little. Her smile vanished when she remembered that what she had left in this world, the only family, was still standing there in uniform, ready to soldier on.

“So, where to?” Quistis asked.

“Timber." Ellone replied, "Do I need to... I don’t know, sign something? Give blood or fingerprints?”

“No.” Quistis said, “We already have those on file.”

“Oh.” Ellone said, somewhat dejected.

“His last command.” Seifer scoffed, but didn’t know whether it was the idea that rubbed him the wrong way, or the command itself, “Alright.”

“I have two members of my personal squad ready in the hangar bay. They’ll take you home.” Quistis said to Ellone, “I’ll have Darina set up a remote access so you don’t have to be here if you don’t want to.”

“Thank you,” Ellone breathed a sigh or relief. As good as it sounded to be near them, she didn’t want to spend her fifties and beyond in the Garden. She had already broken the promise she had given to Uncle Laguna about never fighting in their wars and so didn’t want to go full-fledged SeeD. Thankfully, his last command hadn’t required her to do so.

“Well, then let’s have a drink.” Seifer said, “It’s tradition.”

“You made that up.” Quistis said.

“Did not! We gotta get to the Secret Area and drink a toast, that’s how it goes. Can’t your squad wait?”

Ellone rolled her eyes but couldn’t hold back a faint chuckle.

_Why not?_ she thought, _Just one for the road._

* * *

_The Chicobo was breathing shallowly, its little wings twitching. Its feathers, slick with its own blood, jittered like the wings of the Bite Bug that had targeted it for its breast meat. A curious little thing she had been, the girl knew, to wander away from her brothers and sisters, this far from the crossing._

_Poor thing. Poor, defenseless thing._

_The Bite Bug itself was in pieces all around her, torn limb from limb, ligament from ligament. Its wings would’ve made a fine, shimmering roll of gauze for the Chicobo, but the wound, she saw, was fatal. The razor-sharp teeth had hit an artery and the poor thing, chirping and twitching, was bleeding out in her hands._

_“No... no...”_

_It reminded her of the first real memory she had, the deafening sound of long-range artillery leveling Old Hill, then known to her only as Winhill. Curious, she had stepped out to find a half-man bleeding out on her doorstep. _ _A casualty of a war she would later read about and understand only in retrospect but his hands gripping her skirt, as if the floral pattern would save his life... as if the decision made to strike fast and strike true would somehow be reversed if only the hem of this little girl’s dress could fit into the palm of his hand..._

_“No...”_

_She didn’t see the animals slowly creeping their way towards her and her little tragedy. Chaterpillars inching towards her, slowly. Cockatrice taking cautious steps. The mother Chocobo and her Chicobo, there to witness the passing of their curious little daughter and sibling. Housecats, drawn in by their curiosity, all encircling the girl and her lost little friend._

_Ellone saw, from a distance, that something was different._

_The girl, sobbing, hunched over the dying creature was emanating light - brilliant, bright and warm, as if that of a benevolent sun. The light was almost malleable, almost within reach and it was calling them in, like a beacon. The light that, Ellone saw, snaked around each and every creature without them even noticing._

_“I’ll... try.”_

_The girl put a hand on the wound and closed her eyes, sniffing, trying to stifle her tears long enough to concentrate. Ellone’s brow creased. So far, she hadn’t been noticed. She then dismissed this thought: she wasn’t really there. This was just a window through time, nothing more, it-_

_“Are you just going to stand there, or are you going to help me?”_

_Ellone’s eyes grew wide as the girl looked over her shoulder and _directly at her bystander.

_Ellone couldn’t say anything. The girl scoffed at her and returned to the Chicobo. The light emanating from her began pulsing, sending wave after wave of heat, radiant, to the creatures gathered around her._

_With caution, Ellone approached her, careful to stay outside of the light. If she could be seen, there was a chance that she could be reached._

_“I’ll save her.” the girl said, “I’ll save her, you’ll see, Miss.”_

_Ellone watched as the light surrounding her and the creatures around her began to grow brighter and brighter, gradually blinding out everything else around it. Ellone lifted up her arm to shield her eyes, and through it, saw the girl, a silhouette in the center of the light._

_She also saw something else. The subtlest of luminous lines, flowing from the creatures it encircled to the center, towards the girl – like fishing lines pulled by a single reel. The waves of light flowed into the poor Chicobo choking its last and as Ellone watched, the Chicobo’s shallow breaths deepened. The creature squeaked, emitting that shrill sound they made when they were happy and its wound began to close. New feathers sprung out of the pink, renewed flesh and when the lines of pure luminescence retreated into the monsters, the Chicobo chirped and sprung. The girl let go of it and, chirping, the Chicobo started to dance around her, wagging its tail._

_Ellone saw the girl wipe the beads of sweat on her forehead on her sleeve. She slumped where she sat. She was tired, very tired, and the monsters, who now knew that they had given something invaluable to their simple, instinctive minds willingly to another creature, slowly deserted her, leaving her alone in the clearing._

_“Not bad...” the girl whispered, “Not bad at a-“_

_“Sis!”_

_Ellone whipped around to glance behind her. There, a little ways away, stood a boy in blue jeans and a checkered shirt; his eyes, same as the girl’s wide open with fear and surprise. Ellone’s eyes widened as the girl forced herself to stand, barely managing to remain balanced on her wobbly legs, and forced her voice to stay even as she spoke._

_“Josh... hey.”_

_“What did you...” Josh managed, before cupping both hands over his mouth, as if afraid of what he’d say next._

_“It’s not what you think.” The girl’s voice was almost pleading, vibrating with desperation, “It’s not-“_

_“No, no, no, nonononononono...” Josh was shaking his head, “No, Lea, you’re not... no! No! No!”_

_Josh turned around and bolted. The girl braced herself, pushed the ground and forced her legs to move._

_“Get out of my way!” she shouted, taking a swipe at Ellone._

_The impact of her palm against her cheek _woke Ellone up with a scream to the rays of sunlight breaking through the gaps in her blinds, her breath caught in her throat. She felt that somewhere, something had shifted. The dream was proof.

Somewhere, a Sorceress was born.

But Ellone felt that this was not in the past, or, at least, not in the near or distant past. Her brow furrowed as her breathing gradually wound down. She didn’t know the girl. She did not know her name, her face, her voice. Nor her brother.

One thought overwhelmed all others: _but how did she see me?_

Ellone didn’t know. What she knew for sure, was a line from the Gospels regarding the Sorceress: _and upon each a gift shall be bestowed._

Was that it?

Ellone wrapped her arms around her knees. The dream, the feeling of it hovered over her mind like an ill omen. She sighed and reached for the drawer, pulled it out and put on the comm-link. She clicked it. It bleeped once. Twice.

“_...yes?”_

Her voice. It was her voice. Just like his, on the night of the fallout.

“Who?” Ellone asked.

* * *

Quistis closed the door and locked it. She could hear the murmurs in the hallway from inside the room, curious and afraid and panicked and conspiratorial. She pressed her back against the door. There was static in her ear. The comm-link was still open. Quistis took a deep breath and forced herself away from the door and into the bedroom. She stood at the threshold and forced herself to look at the body.

“It’s Brea.” She said, “She’s dead.”

Silence on the other end. The sound of blood dripping from the exit wound in her skull, into the small pool forming on the floor. Each droplet felt like a gunshot. Nausea rose, surprising Quistis, but she pushed it down. It was just a corpse. She had seen her fair share of those.

That’s when she felt the knot in her chest, wrapped around her heart, squeezing.

_“I’m sorry.” _Ellone said.

Quistis stared at the note, at the card shouting the sordid truth.

**I did my duty.**

_Did you do it? Did you take Elise’s powers just so she could die in peace?_

She shook her head.

_No. You wouldn’t do this for her sake. You wouldn’t do this for any of us, either._

Quistis ran her hands down her face.

_You would do it for him. You would do it to win his war... and you would die for it. You would._

“It’s not your fault.” Quistis managed, “It’s nobody’s fault.”

_“There is something else.”_

“I know.” Quistis sighed. The knot had moved to her throat. “A new Sorceress is born. We got nowhere.”

A list ran down in her head. Things that needed to do. The items, each one vying for a higher priority, re-arranged themselves, moving up and down, one to infinity, until the first thing appeared and tied itself to the dead body in front of her.

“Elle, I’ll call you back. Turn on your TV and keep it on.”

Quistis closed the channel and cycled through the frequencies. One bleep was all it took.

“_Yes, sir?”_

“Darina, does Brea have a successor on file?”

Silence. Hesitation.

_“Sir, has something...”_

“Just answer the question.”

_“Just a moment, sir.”_

The faint clicking of keys in the background.

_“Yes, sir. SeeD, Class B. Ami Windt. Trabian recruit, 20 years old, gunblade specialist. Para-magical affinity for-“_ her voice trailed off as Quistis slowly spaced out, away from the words.

_Focus_, Quistis told herself, _go through the motions first._

“Good, good. I need you to draw up some paperwork.”

_“Sir?”_

“I am abolishing the ranks of General and Garden Master, effective immediately. Honorary ranks such as Major General and Lieutenant General will remain intact, as they have other uses. Inform her successor that she will not be succeeding anyone.”

_“Yes, sir.”_

“Before you do that, dispatch the Garden coroner and a clean-up crew of two, as well as four Faculty, to the General’s suite. Be discreet. Don’t answer any questions about it. I’ll fill you in after we get through with that.”

_“Y-yes, sir. Sir, if I may...”_

“Thank you, Darina. That’ll be all.”

Quistis clicked the frequency closed and switched channels. She could feel her heart trembling in her chest, like fluttering of wings, threatening. Cold sweat was pouring out of every pore. Her mouth was dry, but she knew that it was something different this time than just a need to hurl.

_“What?”_ he groaned on the other end.

“Get up, shave, get in uniform.”

_“The fuck, Quistis?”_

“Seifer, just do it? For me?”

_“...something’s wrong, isn’t it.”_

“Yes. Something’s very fucking wrong.”

_“Fine. I’ll be ready in ten. Fucking Hyne, it never ends.”_

Quistis clicked the channel closed. She took a deep breath and continued.

_“Navigation?”_

“This is the Grand Master. What’s our ETA to Esthar City?”

_“22 minutes, sir.”_

“Thank you. As you were.”

Click. Click. Click.

_“Communications?”_

“Prepare the external sound stage. Link the output to Galbadian frequencies as well as FH and Balamb. Audio only. Be ready to go in twenty minutes.”

_“Will you be taking the booth, sir?”_

“No. Patch it to the office. Notify Ellone Loire of the broadcast, just in case.”

_“Understood, sir.”_

Quistis took off her comm-link and slipped it into her jacket’s side pocket. She then took two steps forward and plucked the note from where it was stuck between the mirror and the frame. She cradled it in her hands and took one last look at the body. Her head had fallen back, her arms were hanging limply and her eyes were closed. She looked like she was sleeping. Quistis would have believed that too if it wasn't for the exit wound dripping down.

“I’m sorry.” She said.


	4. Annex

**(Day 0.)**

* * *

Situated in front of her TV screen, tea mug and toast in hand, Ellone's eyes were glued to The Estharian News Network.

Ellone took a bite of her toast. The honey on it dripped onto her plate.

The scenery was something she had seen only once before: a crowd of all ages, sizes and shapes gathered in the background; a mishmash of noise, color and half-finished words flooding into the boom mic, still in the shot. Amateur cameraman, she assumed. Front and center was a woman wearing a lapel-free, black three-piece. With a microphone in hand, the strands of her auburn hair straight as razors, her face a perfect balance of natural beauty and make-up, she commanded Ellone's attention.

_“...Garden has situated itself on the North Western section of Esthar City, where the crowd you see behind me has gathered. There have been no prior information about an announcement, but the Garden hasn’t...”_

She abruptly stopped. Her left hand went to her earpiece. She listened and nodded once before returning to the microphone.

_“We are now going live from the Ocean Garden – acting Grand Master Quistis Trepe has just informed us that there would be an announcement.”_

Ellone took a sip of tea and a giant bite out of her toast. As she chewed, the screen changed to a simple black background with the SeeD Cross in the middle. Quistis’ voice, loud and clear, sounded through.

_“People of Esthar. I am Quistis Trepe, Grand Master of Ocean Garden. The events of the past few days have been devastating and I know that most of you would like to know what happened. I can offer you this: the culprits of this attack on Esthar have been punished to the full extent of our ability.”_

An ache in her chest where Squall should have been, the memory of his voice on the phone.

_“Unfortunately, Esthar has been dealt a crippling blow. The full extent of the damage is still being investigated, however, for the time being, there is no way of predicting when the basic amenities such as power or running water will be restored.”_ There was a short pause. Ellone heard Quistis almost sigh. _“President Elise Galloway was also a victim of the attacks, as was the members of the parliament, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Esthar Police. In the absence of a governing body, a police force or a military, I have no choice but to invoke the 64th Amendment of the Estharian Constitution. For those of you who do not know, the 64th Amendment states that in a time of war, the Ocean Garden Grand Master holds the rank of Field Marshal in the Estharian Army. Based on that authority and with a heavy heart, as well as the only legitimate authority left in Esthar, I hereby declare martial law, effective immediately.”_

A small window opened in the bottom left side of the screen, showing the mobile crowd fall to absolute silence.

_“You are ordered to disperse and return to your homes and remain there until further notice. A curfew will be in place once it is deemed safe to do so. I assure you that this will be temporary and will last as short as we can make it.”_

No reaction from the crowd. Ellone’s mug was frozen in the air, the steam rising from it rippling the view of the TV.

_“There will be further announcements as events progress. Thank you.”_

* * *

Quistis slumped into her chair (_his chair, damn it, it was his chair_) in front of the desk that also served as the console. Seated on the leather guest armchairs and staring at her, was Seifer.

“Well.” Seifer said with a sigh. His head fell back and he stared at the bleak skies above Sorceress Memorial, visible through the domed, armored glass ceiling of what used to be the General’s Office. “That was shit.”

“Not yet.” Quistis said, “They still don’t know.”

Seifer didn’t respond.

“What?” she asked.

“Wait until they figure it out.” Seifer said, “Just wait. That shitshow’s gonna take it all. Blood down the storm drains. The whole fucking neon skyline red.”

“Maybe not.” Quistis said, “Not unless someone is dumb enough to try and organize them. And even if, I...”

The phone rang. Quistis picked it up. “Grand Master.”

“_Ellone Loire on priority channel one, sir.”_

Quistis sighed. “Put her through.”

She put it on speaker. It rang twice.

“Elle, you’re on speaker.” Quistis said.

_“What are you not telling them?”_

“What’s on your mind, Elle?” Quistis asked.

_“Martial law, Quistis? Really?”_

“We don’t have a choice.” Quistis said, “The power plants are gone, both of them. The shields are down and the monsters will soon figure out that there’s nothing between them and their prey. The Octagon was destroyed. The barracks were razed. The Parliament Chambers are gone, the Presidential Palace is a ruin and the police HQ is a smoldering wreck. His estimated casualty rate for officials and combatants was around 90 percent, give or take. You do the math.”

Silence.

_“What are you going to do?”_ Ellone asked.

“That’s the hard part.” Quistis said, “You’re still in Timber, right?”

_“Yes.”_

“Might interest you and the rest of the Maniacs to know that we’ve struck a bargain with Galbadia’s acting president, Olga Sevron.”

_“What kind of a bargain?”_

“We now have full control of both Galbadia and Trabia Gardens, as well as the Galbadian military. We can’t hold Esthar with just SeeD and we don’t have enough cadets to put through crowd control ringers as field exams.”

“Somebody will fuck up, sooner than later and the fallout’ll be worse.” Seifer said, “Better to keep the bread and circuses handy while we try to clean up Leonhart’s legendary night of total fucking destruction. Maybe we’ll get lucky and even save face a bit.”

Silence.

_“So you’ve... allied Esthar with Galbadia?”_

“In a sense.” Quistis said.

“Why mince words?” Seifer laughed, “We own the fucking world, Elle. That’s what it’s come to – the two of us here, me and her, we _own the world now. It’s ours.” _He chuckled, wistful, “Isn’t that fucking funny? Elise Galloway died trying to ensure that this would never happen. Hate to admit it, but credit where it is due – Onesson won. Motherfucker did with two cyborgs and a basic bitch what Rinoa tried and failed to do all those years ago.”

_“Win, Seifer? How? How did he win?”_

“We’re now tyrants and the world is ours.” Seifer said, chuckling, “Fucking once in a Lunar Cry.”

_“What happened to Onesson? Nobody said anything since you took him in.”_

“He’s rotting in the brig.” Seifer said, “His wife asked for a divorce on the spot. We granted it. Lost the custody of his kid. He’ll never get out of his solitary confinement cell. I give him a week before he hangs himself, the fucking waste.”

“I’m sorry, Ellone.” Quistis said, “I never wanted it to come to this. But after Selphie, he...”

Silence, almost hesitant.

“What did he tell you?” Quistis asked, “The logs say he called you right before. What did he say?”

Silence, pregnant with meaning.

_“...he said he missed his dad.”_

The dial tone felt like a gavel striking home, again and again and again and again. Ellone shut the TV off, drained the last of her tea and returned to bed. She only wanted to sleep. To sleep, to die and to forget before the memory of her family, gone and ashes and blood vials now, came to keep her awake.

* * *

_She ran like the wind after him, her legs straining to propel her forward and she cursed him for being able to run that fast and through the brush. Ellone followed her and both followed the boy, the witness. There were a million dangers between here and wherever he thought he was running to; and while they wouldn’t touch her, she knew that they wouldn’t extend that to her little brother. The night time breeze bent the tall blades of grass, a wave rushing through them as the moonlight showed his small frame, darting in and out of view._

_“Josh!” she called after him, one hand reaching out, aware of the distance between them. Josh just sped up, rushing with a desperate run through the bushes and towards the Chocobo crossing._

_A thought exploded in her head, like a flash of blinding light. Ellone heard it as a distant echo._

If he gets there, it’s over. It’s all over. They’ll kill me.

_“Josh!” the girl called out and reached out with her entire being. Ellone saw the same luminescent tendrils, thin, long and billowing as if caught in an invisible breeze, shoot forward and wrap around the boy’s body, move with him as he ran. At the same time, Ellone knew that the girl herself couldn’t see it... because the next time she called his name, she saw the strings tighten, tensing, straining against the boy’s speed. “Josh! Stop!”_

_Ellone saw every single string tense up, pulled along by the word and they pulled loose something from the boy, a glowing shape that Ellone couldn’t quite place. Pulsing, colorful, beautiful and teeming with more than ever could be expressed, the light was ripped from the boy’s body and his next step missed. His legs tangled up and he fell, his body twirling obscenely around, arms limp and flailing. He rolled once, twice, and then... stopped._

_The girl rushed on, her legs aching with every step, and got to his side. She crouched down._

_“Josh, hey, are you...”_

_She touched him and he turned over. The girl recoiled with a gasp, her breath caught in her throat. The shadows drawn on his face under the moonlight only made it worse. She felt like there were two hands on her throat, squeezing the air out of her lungs. Unable to breathe, she stood there, looking down at his open, glazed-over eyes, staring into nothing, frozen in their sockets, forever empty, forever vacant now... forever... forever..._

No, no, no, please, no! Please, I didn’t... I didn’t mean...

_Panic, breath on hold, rising, overwhelming, every nerve burning up, every sense screaming as loud as they could, mixing with the clean air, the curiosity of the thing... the thing on the ground, the body of proof... the proof..._

No, no, no, nononononononononono not him no, I didn’t, I just didn’t...

_Ellone knew that the boy was dead. The body, bathed in the pale light was a stone’s throw from the road._

* * *

Ellone stirred. In the back rows of her awareness, there was a warning, praying for her to hear: that this was impossible. She didn’t know the girl. She didn’t know the Sorceress. 

* * *

_The girl’s knees hit the ground. She reached out and pulled the boy into a tight embrace, pressing him close to her heart. With shaking hands, she cradled his head and listened for the sound of his heartbeat, to hear nothing but silence._

_The soil and the grass rustled. The creatures that had given bits of their lives for the Chicobo’s came crawling, slowly but surely, gathering around her._

_The girl couldn’t breathe. She was rocking him back and forth. His limp limbs were swaying to her rhythm, the lifeless flesh sagging in her arms moving as she tried to draw breath and when she breathed out, barely a gasp, she tried to breathe back into him what had just been taken out. The luminous, pulsing light that had been his life, brimming with infinite possibilities, snuffed out... surrendered to the darkness in an instant with a stray word._

_“No... no... no... please, I did’t mean to say it like that, I didn’t... I didn’t mean...”_

_The creatures around her, the Bite Bug, the Chaterpillar, the Chocobo, they bent their heads and stood in silent vigil, holding her at the center of their circle as she held onto the body and breathed in, and it felt like drawing breath for the first time. She breathed in his scent and the smell of the body out in the damp night. She exhaled with a sigh._

And to each one a gift,_ the girl and Ellone both remembered_, may it bountiful be.

_“Is this... what I am now..?” she asked out loud, and Ellone feared that she was talking to her, “But the Chicobo... I helped the Chicobo, can’t I..?”_

_The girl reached out. The strings, now thicker and longer, whipped out of her and unfurled, their tips searching for something equivalent, something like life itself to heal the wound, but they grasped at the empty dark without touching anything. She lashed out at the night, at the houses and the dark windows and at those sleeping their beds; her reach extending and extending until it covered the field... nothing. There was nothing._

_It felt like drowning, this clawing at the very idea of life, the thought of drawing it._

_“Why can’t I..? Why can’t I..?”_

_And to each a gift, may it bountiful be._

_Then what is my gift..? What is my gift if I can take his life, but can’t give life back to him..?”_

_The monsters were watching silently._

* * *

Ellone woke up, covered in cold sweat. She woke up out of breath, with a soreness in her legs. She laid there, staring at the ceiling, trying to calm herself. She breathed in through her nose and out through her mouth. When her heart slowed down and the feverish rush receded, she forced herself up.

_The Sorceress’ brother is dead. Lea and Josh... maybe..._

The thought cut itself off. No. She had made a promise to Laguna. She wouldn’t fight in their wars. She wouldn’t be a soldier.

_But if there’s a chance to find her... then what?_

The question hung in the air. She wondered briefly if that was how they thought all the time, if that was how they operated. The memory of Odine’s lab surfaced, the sprawling nightmare of Squall’s mental connection choking her out every time. She remembered the goal of those days. To find him, to save him.

She knew that now, it was too late to do that.

But maybe, she could help save the others.

Ellone went into the kitchen to put the kettle on. She would have to call in sick. It would be a long day. In her head, a part of Squall’s last will kept replaying, which followed the water beginning to boil.

_“If we’ve killed the Sorceress, it means that another is either born, or will be born. For this, I am hereby initiating Ellone Loire into the Garden Intelligence Unit, effective immediately. A portion of our intelligence cadre will be devoted to finding others with unique abilities like hers, and the witch-kin, as she is known, will henceforth be under our jurisdiction and protection. And sis... I need you to find the Sorceress. Please.”_

_By your last command, little brother, _Ellone thought.


	5. Reconnaissance

**(Day 1)**

* * *

Artemisia straightened her back and stood to attention, her hands firmly on the sides of her white uniform. Her jet-black hair was pulled into a tight ponytail and her electric blue eyes focused on nothing but the Grand Master.

They called her the Unlikely Heir. She had no ties to the Fated Children, or any of the previous Grand Masters, but be that as it may, Grand Master Sera Lowcraft was as formidable as they came. Sitting behind the V-Shaped desk-console, her eyes scanning the data slate she had just been handed were sharp and focused. She was a beautiful woman, Artemisia had always thought; her features almost were too soft to allow her to be who she was, but there was an air about her that made all the difference.

When she spoke, Lowcraft’s voice was low and her tone even. “Is this accurate?”

Artemisia nodded. “Yes, sir. Last night’s connection shows that the Dollet Duke is intent on recusing the Dukedom from the Tilmitt Pact.”

Lowcraft sighed and set the data slate down. “What does he plan to do?” she asked.

“He plans to invoke his right not to renew it, sir.” Artemisia said, “Furthermore, he fully intends to make a show of it in order to show that the Dukedom has suffered too long under siege from what used to be Galbadia to ever secede. His words exactly.”

“Unfortunately, that is his right.” Lowcraft said, her fingers tapping on the console, “It will be the centennial of the Pact. He can recuse the Dukedom from it. But it wouldn’t do him any good. The rest of the world still agrees that despite that it started, the Tilmitt Pact has done the impossible.”

Artemisia nodded.

Lowcraft sighed, “Only a week away, too. How long ago was this talk that you... eavesdropped on?”

“The calendar in the Duke’s office put it four months ago, sir.” Artemisia said, “The anniversary.”

The day that the Dollet Duke had been shot dead on live television while the Fated Children had failed to stop it, Artemisia wanted to say, but knew that the Grand Master knew.

“He’s going to force my hand.” Lowcraft said.

“The Duke is considering armed resistance. If necessary, he said, but his thoughts indicated that he believed it would be.”

“He’s right about that.”

“I don’t believe that it’ll come to that, sir.” Artemisia said.

Lowcraft raised an eyebrow. "Why not?"

“His daughter, Evaline, is against the idea, and she’s willing to act as the honorary Duchess of Dollet, if her father is to be deposed by us.”

“That... was unexpected.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Thank you, Artemisia. That’ll be all. Dismissed.”

“Yes, sir.”

Artemisia turned on her heels and walked out of the Grand Master’s office, out through the ornate double doors and into the curving hallway. She checked her wrist watch. 22:14, internal. Ocean Garden would be drawing a bit close to FH by now, she guessed. If she walked out onto one of the observation balconies, she would be able to see the blinking lights of the ramshackle city of engineers, orange hues and warm, in the distance.

Not tonight, though. Tonight, she was tired. She had spent the entire night going in and out of consciousness, trying to find the Dollet Duke, the handsome and ambitious Henri, only to constantly find herself in events they had shared.

...then there would be that other thing.

Artemisia pressed her palm against the scanner by the elevator door. A bleep informed her that the elevator was coming. She waited for a few seconds. The capsule settled and the doors opened with a hiss. Artemisia stepped in.

“Ground floor.”

She had been a witness to many historical events over seven years she had spent in the Espionage unit, filled with sedatives and tracing bloodlines back in time to their sources. The turn of the First Sorceress War had been one of them: Laguna Loire’s idiot bravery turned into a defining moment of world history. But then there was the side-effect of her chemical helpers, the random trips to fringe branches of bloodlines, which she knew would be waiting for her once she laid down to sleep.

The elevator stopped and let her out. The cool night air and the scent of salt water in the breeze embraced Artemisia as soon as her boots found the marble floor. Her footsteps echoed in the emtpy space, the acoustics enhancing every sound and scattering them about.

Maybe it would be Laguna Loire again tonight. Another wacky misadventure. Or, maybe, it would be Sorceress Rinoa. Both were always somehow there, showing her scenes from their respective wars. She understood why the latter was there. She herself was witch-kin, after all.

Artemisia turned her steps towards the dormitories, shuffling her feet, weary. She thought briefly about trying to visit the turning point of the Second Sorceress War, the beginning of a new age that she knew as the Five Wars Period, also known as the Reign of the Fated Children. The major downside of that was that she would have to look at it through Squall Leonhart’s eyes and his mind was a cold, lonely place. It always ruined her day afterwards.

Artemisia stepped into the hallway, counting the doors until she found hers. The palm-print scanner emitted a sickly green light as it verified her identity.

The door opened and the lights came on. Her roommate, Silver, was already asleep. Artemisia bent down and took off her boots. She padded on in her socks, tip-toeing through the kitchen and into her bedroom, the motion-sensors embedded into the room following her by turning on the lights embedded into the ceiling as she went.

Once she was in her own room, she took off her uniform and threw herself onto her bed. The sedatives had fucked her up good this time and maybe she would have a talk with the anesthetist to go easy on the dose. She sighed and closed her eyes. 

* * *

_The short walk home was now the final mile of eternity. Her feet that shuffled the dirt around left behind a trail that she desperately wanted to follow back. Her head was empty. The town’s quiet followed her along the path - the houses around her were lightless, leaving only the orange halos of the street lamps to keep her company. Shaped like lanterns, they lit the way of her funeral march._

_One foot in front of the other. At least to take him home, at least to lay him on his own bed for the night. At least to tuck him in one last time, one last goodbye._

_She didn’t feel the tears anymore. They were flowing, she knew, and her vision was blurred, but she could walk back home blindfolded and her brother’s hand in hers was all that she needed._

_Like old days. Just like old days._

_Beneath the silence of her mind, her thoughts were in complete disarray. Questions were beginning to pop up, the practical overwhelming the emotional. What would she tell their parents? How could she explain that she hadn’t meant to do what she had done?_

_Dear Hyne, how to even put it into words?_

_The inevitable doorstep now stood in front of her. The brass doorknob presented an insurmountable obstacle._

_She remembered that they weren’t even supposed to have been out this late in the first place._

_She put her hand on the door knob and froze. The feeling came out of nowhere, the feeling of being watched. She peered over her shoulder, and there she was. The woman from the field. Her clothes were different now, but her face was the same – less confused, but still somewhat astonished._

_“Who are you?” she asked, “Why are you here again?”_

_“You can see me?” Ellone asked._

_“Of course she can. She’s a Sorceress. Even if she couldn’t see you, she’d feel you there.”_

_Ellone glanced sideways and saw another. Out nowhever, the feeling that she was like her – a distant witness- struck her. She had beautiful, straight, silver hair that cascaded down to the shoulders of her White SeeD uniform. Her eyes, an unusual shade of golden, gleamed in the dark. She had, Ellone noticed, Rinoa’s cherubic cheeks and smooth lips. She had her hands in the jumpsuit’s pocket and her posture seemed relaxed, as if this was nothing new for her._

_“And who are _you?_” Ellone asked._

_“Oh, that’s right... you don’t know me. This,” she waved in the general direction of the girl’s house, “is still ‘the present’ for you, isn’t it?”_

_“What’s your name?”_

_“What does it matter?” Lea asked in a strained whisper, “Can either of you help me? _Will_ either of you help me?”_

_“Sorry.” Artemisia said, “I can’t. Neither can she. We’re just here to bear witness.”_

_“Then get out.” The girl snarled, “I don’t want you here.”_

_Ellone marched forward and grabbed Artemisia by the jumpsuit’s collar. She pulled and the scenery around them changed, shifting from a vision of a lost girl with her dead brother to a more familiar setting._

_Ellone remembered the smell of leather and cold glass and it triggered the vision of him, half-naked, sitting by the window, unable to put into words the things he had seen._

_“Well, this is different.” Artemisia said, “I’ve never been here before. But since he’s alive, isn’t this-”_

_“This is not for you.” Ellone said. _ _She pulled Artemisia away, through the door and into the hallway. _ _“I demand an explanation. Now.”_

_“I’ll answer what I can. It’s not every day you get to meet the one who had your gift first.”_

_Ellone's eyes widened. “You mean you can... connect?”_

_Artemisia nodded. “Yes.”_

_“But how? I don’t know you.”_

_“Nor I, you. I didn’t come because of you, I came because of the little Sorceress back there.”_

_“Again, how?”_

_“Oh, the strides we’ve made in the past hundred ye-fuck...” Artemisia sighed, “You weren’t supposed to know that.”_

_“A hundred years? That's where... or rather, when, you're from?”_

_“Please, forget I said that. In any case, you can trace bloodlines through Sorceresses, because we share a bond with them. You know this already. It’s all in the title.”_

_“Witch-kin.” Ellone said._

_“Yeah.”_

_“You’re a SeeD.” Ellone said._

_“Yes.”_

_“What’s your name? Can you tell me that?”_

_“Artemisia. No last name.” She held out her hand. Ellone shook it. “I know who you are, of course. Ellone Loire – the first.”_

_“I need to go back to the Sorceress.” Ellone said._

_“Mind if I come with? I’ll be here as long as I’m asleep and that’s a full night where I left.”_

_“Sure.” Ellone said, “Now...”_

_The scenery around them changed, morphed from the warm lighting of the Presidential Palace hallway and gradually, like a trickling faucet forming a pool in a sink, the soft, neon hues of Esthar City, with that blurred glow brought in by the rain, faded in. The smell of arcoconcrete and monomers, somewhat sterile but still also fresh filled Ellone’s nostrils._

_“This isn’t the Sorceress.” Ellone said._

_“Isn’t it?” Artemisia asked, brushing a wet strand away from her eyes, “Look out.”_

_Ellone half-turned and a girl came running past, her red hair a storm behind her. Her heavy breaths that left her mouth in short spurts of mist told Ellone that she had been running for a while. She was wearing what both of the witnesses knew to be a standard school uniform: navy blue pants, white shirt, gray vest, a tie and black, now wet, shoes. She had an orange backpack bouncing with every step and a raincoat of slick material, as red as her hair._

_Something clicked in Ellone’s head. The uniform. She recognized it. Esthar City Middle School. She remembered the touch of the rough, stiff fabric and the constant reminder of the tie around her neck. She had worn it... a later variant of it._

_“This is before my adolescence.” Ellone said, breaking into a jog after the girl, “So this is the past.”_

_She glanced at Artemisia, who, while keeping pace with her and so the girl, was looking around with a look of pure bewilderment on her face. Her eyes were curious and the way she kept sizing everything up, looking all around to make sure she took it in, reminded Ellone of herself when she had first been brought to Esthar. The overwhelming brilliance of it, the luminosity, the open streets, the cleanness of it – so different than the dirt and grass and mud of Winhill, so much bigger, so much flashier._

_Ellone realized that this was the first time she had seen the City. This made her feel uneasy. A hundred years. Was the city gone in that time?_

_A worse thought: had Squall’s night of destruction left it so crippled that it had crumbled?_

_But she knew she would get no answers from her, so she focused on the running girl. The girl stopped at an intersection and watched as the groundcars slid on by, hovering barely a foot above ground. Artemisia and Ellone saw that she had something in her hands. Her fingers twirled the object around. It was a relic by any standard, she knew that, a museum piece if anyone had had the mind to pick it up and actually look at it. But it had been sitting there in the corner of the school library and so nobody had minded when she had taken it._

_“Well, wherever she’s going,” Artemisia said, “I think we better follow. I think you’ll like this one.”_

_“How can you tell?”_

_“You were following the Sorceress, weren’t you?” Artemisia asked, “Well, she,” she pointed at the girl waiting at the intersection, “is one. Their bloodline follows like a single river through time.”_

_The light turned green and they crossed the street._

_“Which one?” Ellone asked, mostly to herself, “Judging by the uniform, the City, she’s...”_

_Two more blocks and then to the right, to Lilac Street, Residential Tower 6, Apartment 42. Greet Rhys, the doorman, standing there with his rifle and double-breasted, navy blue coat. Pass through his scan and into the chrome-and-marble loby, lit up with luminescent, brilliant LED veins embedded into the walls and the ceiling. The three elevators up ahead, the middle one was on ground floor, so she rushed in and pressed 4._

_The closer she got, the more excited she became._

_He was going to be so happy._

_Ellone’s eyes grew wide as realization set in._

_“Adel.” She said, “She’s Sorceress Adel.”_

* * *

“Motherfuck me- Gale! Aim higher, you dumbass, where’s your Pulse Ammo? _Firaga!”_

The spell exploded on the side of the Abaddon, eliciting an earth-shaking, high-pitched, garbled noise of a roar from the creature. The Mu Squad had encircled the creature already, but their martial artist, Lonn, was pulling punches, they had lost their swordsman. Serving as both the squad leader and field mage was making it difficult for Lian to concentrate.

_“Lian, what the fuck are you doing?” _Seifer’s voice buzzed in his ear,_ “It’s an undead creature! You know the Great Salt Lake are full of those – why does nobody have Holy junctioned?”_

“Sir, now isn’t the best time to-“

_“Oh fuck _you!”

As Lian watched, Seifer leapt over him and charged the creature head-on. The massive form of the beast roared, swiping at Lonn who failed to dodge the blow in time and was thrown aside like a rag doll. Seifer came from below, hand outstretched, palm out, and screamed;

_“Firaga!”_

The LVL4 para-magic spell ignited the creature’s deformed skull and it exploded from within, showering those below with charred splinters of bone and undead matter. The creature leaned over, failing legs causing it to lose balance and fell down. Seifer leapt to the side to avoid it.

That was when he turned and looked Lian dead in the eye.

“You fuckhead!” Seifer spat, “What the fuck is th- Lonn, get the fuck back on your fucking feet, fucking _now!”_

“Sir, my leg-“

“_Fuck _your leg, _and _you! What the fuck kind of martial artist are you?”

“Sir,” Lian said, attempting to intervene, “This isn’t-“

“What!?” Seifer shouted, “This isn’t what!? You lost two SeeDs today – field medic and swordsman, what the fuck do you think, they grow on fucking trees?”

“It ambushed us!” Lonn shouted back, “It dug its way out of the goddamn _ground, _for fuck’s sake, I couldn’t reach Meliss in time, and...”

Seifer held up his hand and clicked on his comm-link. “Grand Master, the fuck is it?”

Lian waited, gesturing at Lonn to keep quiet with the seething anger that he knew he was trying to smother.

“Fuck you!” Seifer spat, “What the fuck are you even _doing_ out there? Fucking Hyne – stay the fuck put and for fuck’s sake, hold the goddamn line!” he switched channels, “Quistis, East, Lambda needs back-up in a major way, so get something over there, I’m on the way!”

He clicked the comm-link off, reached and grabbed Lian by the collar and pulled him closer.

“Now listen, and listen good. Keep watch, Lonn! And Uri, if I see any more of your shots miss, I’m gonna shove that Ulysses straight up your ass and pull until it goes fucking click, get me?” Uri, the sharpshooter, reloaded her weapon without a word or glance. Seifer continued. “Lian, this is what you get. 24 hours before the Galbs get here, which means the defense of this city falls to us.”

“I was at the briefing, sir-“

“Shut the fuck up!” Seifer snapped, “You lose two people to an undead piece of shit like this? I’d have your ass if I didn’t need you at your fucking post. So tell ya what – Uri?”

Uri looked up from her rifle.

“Yes, sir?”

“You’re the new squad leader. Congratufuckinglations, hold the goddamn line, or fucking die trying. If one single solitary monster sets one foot inside the perimeter, I’ll feed you to the Forbidden once the Galbs get here, which is tomorrow. Hearing me?”

“Yes, sir!”

“Now there’ll be a band of Forbidden around, eyes peeled, back to it, people! Your relief is in two hours, don’t you fuck it up until then!”

Seifer pushed Lian and stormed past him, running back through the rugged terrain, the edge of the Great Salt Lake. Sweat was running down his brow and into his eyes, which he wiped on his uniform. His boots found solid arconcrete and he slowed down from a run to a jog to a brisk walk. He switched through the channels, checking the perimeter.

_Fucking Leonhart..._

His body was aching. The training and the nigh-inhuman conditioning had kept him in near-perfect shape, yes, but he was, after all, forty-three years old. One of the oldest SeeDs in recorded history, which wasn’t saying much to him, as he had been one of the witnesses of it unfolding.

The squads stationed around the perimeter, the pressure points where most monsters would skulk around were already showing signs of exhaustion. The two lost from Mu Squad belonged on a list of thirteen KIAs with many more injured. So far, nothing had slipped by, but that was because Quistis and himself had spent the majority of the previous night and that day patroling, stepping in more and more often as time went by. They had thus far managed to rest only with half-hour power naps when they could grab it, more during the day.

His comm-link buzzed. He clicked it on.

“What?”

“_Seifer,”_ Quistis’ voice sounded strained and weary, _“Is it your turn to take half, or mine?”_

“How’s Lambda?”

“Alexander took care of it.”

“Half’s yours.” Seifer lied, “I took the last one.”

_“Know that bar? Crescent Drop?”_

“Yeah.”

_“Room there. Half hour. Comm traffic’s directed to you.”_

“Alright.”

Seifer switched off his comm. He found a bench and sat down. He set his gunblade beside him. His head fell back and he found himself staring at the sky, letting exhaustion roll off his shoulders. The skies were bleak, a sight he had seen before, but without the pleasant shimmer of the honeycomb shield, it just seemed empty.

He wondered, briefly, if this was what Squall had seen in his last moments. He shrugged it off. There was a moment when he would have been proud to call him his brother and actually mean it, but with his body aching for a warm bed, his mind tired from constantly keeping battle stats in his head, he could feel nothing but resentment towards his dead friend.

_Well, it could be worse. At least I’m still breathing._


	6. Discovered Attack

**(Day 2)**

* * *

_The door opened and her mother’s face, creased and old and wonderful and terrible appeared. There was a smile on her lips, a smile that Lea knew would vanish forever in just a moment._

_“Lea, you know there’s a-“ curfew, she would say._

_The look of abject, peaceful joy drained from her face like color running down a canvas to pool on the floor and her face turned pure white at the sight of her son’s limp body cradled in the arms of his sister. Shock set in a split second before the crushing weight of grief, sharpened by agony eternal, pierced her face. Her hands rose to her mouth to hold back a scream that still tore through, slipped through the gaps between her fingers and reverberated in the relative silence of the night._

_Lea had no more tears, Ellone saw. She had spent the drag there crying._

_“Mom...”_

_Her mother’s sobs and shrieks mixed as her trembling hand reached for her son’s face. She kept screaming. The last of her resistance shattered like glass and with fingers curled into claws, she snatched her son’s limp body from his sister’s arms. She held him to her bosom, rocking him back and forth, hands deseprately searching for a sign of life... any sign at all..._

_“Mom... I’m...”_

_Ellone alost heard her thoughts scatter. I’m what?_

_“I’m sorry, I... I didn’t... I didn’t mean...”_

_“Jess, what the-“_

_Ellone barely held back her own shock as Lea’s father, a burly man with curly white hair and gentle eyes came and saw his wife screaming, crying, holding onto... onto..._

_“I’m sorry... dad... I’m... I’m...”_

_“Oh Hyne...” he said, trying desperately to let it end there, “Oh Hyne, what... what...”_

_“I’m...” Lea took a deep breath, “Dad, I’m the Sorceress.”_

_Her mother stopped almost instantly. Another blow. Ellone saw the shock of it travel from the top of her head to the tips of her toes, vibrating in her body. She forced herself to look away from her son’s pale, restful face and at her, at the aberration, at the monster._

_“What did you do?” she asked, swallowing hard, her voice full of ire, “What the hell did you do, Lea?”_

_The tears Lea had thought dried up came trickling down her cheeks as her father, biting down on his lip not to say anything, reached out and ran a hand through Josh’s hair._

_“Answer me!” her mother shouted, making her wince._

_“I... there was this Chicobo, I... wanted to help it so... s-s-s-s-o I... healed it and... Josh saw me... mom, I didn’t mean to say it like that, I-“_

_“Say what? Didn’t mean to say what, Lea?”_

_“Stop.” Lea said, “I told him to stop.”_

_“And to each a gift, and may it bountiful be.” Her father said, not once looking away from Josh, “You wanted him to stop. He did.”_

_“Is this true?” Jess asked Lea._

_Ellone braced herself. So this had been her gift. Her original sin._

_Lea hesitated. Then, she nodded._

_“Why, Lea? " Jess stood up, and although she was shorter than her, by the way Lea shirked from her, Ellone felt that she saw her mother as towering over her, looming like a bad omen._

_“I’m sorry!” Lea sobbed, “I just... I didn’t want to be a Sorceress... I just didn’t and he was gonna tell you and I didn’t want him to tell you because I never wanted to be this and I didn’t mean to do it like that I’m sorryI’m sorryI’msosorrymompleasejust...”_

_Jess’ backhanded slap felt louder than it was to Ellone. Lea’s head snapped to the side and Ellone heard her neck crack._

_“Take him inside, Jhon.” Jess said._

_“Jess, I...”_

_“Inside, Jhon!”_

_Jhon, unable to protest, took Josh’s body. Lea lurched forward, her entier body jerking in the direction of her brother, but her mother’s hands, stronger than she could ever know, cupped her shoulders and pushed her. Lea fell, her eyes open with the shock of the move. She fell down the three steps and landed on her back._

_“You’re not welcome here, you witch!” Jess shouted. She turned, went inside and closed the door behind her._

_Lea laid there, and as Ellone watched, anger flared. Potent, spreading like wildfire throughout her being. The emotional turmoil of the past hour came crashing down on her and before Ellone could react, say something, anything at all, Lea had gotten back up._

_She marched up the steps and to the door of her home. Her fist pounded on the door._

_“You think I did this on purpose? That I could harm one hair on his blameless head? You think I wanted to be like this? Answer me!”_

_Only silence._

_“And you!” Lea’s head turned and she glared daggers at Ellone, “You’re just standing there, watching this whole thing happen! You could’ve helped me, you could’ve done anything, but no, you just watched! Do you think I wanted this to happen? Do any of you? I would rather see it all _burn_ than to-“_

_Lea’s eyes flew open a fraction of a second too late. Horror filled her gaze and she turned to her side just in time to see her home go up like an effigy, engulfed in flames like the funeral pyre she had just willed into existence; a crematorium for her brother, her family and every other worldly tie that she had just severed in the name of her personal confession and exorcism..._

_Lea’s horrified scream follow_ed Ellone into the waking world and she came to with a shriek. Her hand shot out from beneath the covers and to the button of the bedside lamp. She turned it on and invited warm, orange light into the room. She then reached for the comm-link resting on her bedside. Her shaking fingers fumbled with it. Breathing heavy, her heart pounding in her temples, Ellone slipped it on and clicked on its only button. Emergency line, Defcon 0. 

It bleeped once. Twice. Three ti-

_“Elle?”_

Quistis’ voice.

“I know.” Ellone panted, “I know who the Sorceress is. I know where she is... and I know what she’s done.”

* * *

The ambient whoosh that filled the hangar bay howled in teir ears as Quistis and Seifer rushed forward, weapons in hand, towards the familiar, red shape of the Ragnarok. In front of it, two full squads had been assembled, both armed and ready. Seifer recognized one as the Zeta Squad, Squall’s own. He shrugged it off. He would take what he could get. Quistis came to a halt in front of the squads, who, naturally, eyed her curiously. There had been no time for a mission briefing.

“Listen up!” Quistis said, and the SeeDs stood to attention, “The new Sorceress, Lea, is currently in Old Hill. We are going there to bring her in. Just to make sure nobody gets it confused: this is a capture mission. She is not to be mortally wounded or outright killed. You got it?”

The SeeDs saluted her in response.

“Now, get in!”

They marched up the ramp, and Seifer followed Quistis into the belly of the metal beast.

* * *

The Ragnarok cleared the blast doors of the hangar bay and rushed out into the Estharian morning with moisture collecting around the cockpit glass. The sun, cold and white, greeting it upon exit. The magnificent, crimson spaceship rushed forward with a desparate speed, tearing through the distance between Old Hill and Esthar City. The ocean went by quickly and then gave way first to the coastal city near Mandy Beach, which, in turn gave way to the walled city of Timber. The quaint, rustic texture of the city whizzed by and the Ragnarok moved forward, like a bullet and took a sharp turn South over Shennard Hill, and further on to what used to be Winhill.

Seifer got up from his seat and crouched to glance down.

“How the fuck are we supposed to kn- wait! Quistis, stop!”

Quistis throttled the rear thrusters and the spaceship came to an awkward, lurching halt in mid-air, its noise pointing downwards. Seifer was flung from his feet and onto the console and cursed as he rolled back and tried to get his bearings. 

“Fucking...” he spat, “Land it.”

Quistis veered the Ragnarok in the direction of the Chocobo field. Seifer tried his best to adjust with the shifting incline of the cockpit. Once it leveled out, Seifer crouched next to his seat and peered through the armored glass.

“It’s right below us.” He said.

The Ragnarok spun around and Seifer saw Chocobos and their Chicobo scattering, along with a few monsters that crawled out of their way. The spaceship landed and sunk into the ground as the ramp came down. The SeeDs emerged first, weapons ready and they fanned out, establishing a perimeter. Quistis unbuckled herself and followed Seifer out. Once outside, they each took the helm of a squad and went around either sides of the Ragnarok, moving towards the crossing. On the other side of the dirt road were wooden fences guarding stone houses with angled roofs and wooden shutters.

Dead ahead from their landing point was the house they were looking for.

It had burned to cinders. Only the suggestions of support beams stood. They approached, weapons trained, steps cautious. As they got closer, Seifer made out some of the walls, or what remained of them, and saw that the second floor had collapsed onto the first. As they got closer, they felt the heat lazily radiating off of the ruin. The smoke had mostly cleared, but it still lingered in thin wisps emanating from what was left of the house.

Quistis gestured at the squads to stop. They established the perimeter while Seifer got closer, his eyes scanning what was left for a sign. There was something wrong with the house. Seifer stood right at the front steps leading up to the narrow porch and took the scene in.

Something clicked in his head.

“That’s weird.” Seifer ascended the steps and crouched right at the threshold, sizing up the frame.

“What is?” Quistis asked.

“The pattern.”

“I don’t have an elemental affinity for fire, Seifer.”

“Don’t I know it. Look at this. It burned equally.” Seifer said as he ran his finger up and down the door frame, “It went up like a tinderbox, but as a whole and all at once.”

“What does that mean?” Quistis asked.

“It means that nobody stared this with anything conventional. It says magic, to me.”

“Is she in there?”

“I can’t know before we sift through it. And if she isn’t, there’s one place she can go to.”

Quistis turned to the squad. “Any of you have any experience in CSI?” she asked.

The martial artist of Zeta Squad stepped forward, her hand raised.

“I do, sir.”

“Good.” Quistis said, pointing at the house, “Sift through this and prepare a preliminary report ASAP. The rest of you, back to the Ragnarok.”

The squads fanned out, waiting for them. Quistis glanced at Seifer.

“After you.” he said.

* * *

Lea rushed through the train station, her ticket in her balled up fist. Crumpled up but still valid. The clock hanging from the center of the domed, glass ceiling, visible from anywhere on the main concourse, told her that it was 9:54, which gave her exactly two minutes to clear the concourse and get to the Outbound Platform. She zig-zagged through a crowd of commuters, loiterers and security, brushing past many and focusing on moving forward without colliding into anyone. Her heart was pounding in her throat and the vision of the flames rising up to swallow her life kept flashing before her eyes.

The after-echo of their screams blared in her ears, mingling with the noise of the station.

The smell, (_oh Hyne the disgusting, putrid stench of burning flesh and hair, of burning life..._) that she couldn’t get out of her nostrils was still lingering in the air. The memory was threatening to overwhelm as she rushed forward.

One wrong word. One wrong word at the wrong time, with the wrong emphasis and it had all changed. Her world had burned in the sight of all.

_“ ‘Bred of an airy word, the witch’s proclamation burned them in the sight of all and all that she was, _ _condemning_ _ them to the suffering that which they had wrought upon themselves by sowing the seeds of defiance and war against Hyne, and the witch staked her claim in the world by such a word.’ “_

The Gospels were swimming around in her head, mixing in with the memories of the previous half hour.

_How did that verse go?_

_“ ‘She smiled at them with a mouth full of war and teeth stained with blood, and she said, ‘Behold, I was sent a blight upon you, and you shall know me throughout the land, and I shall make you die on your own swords raised against me.’ ”_

Lea brushed past a Timber Maniacs type with her green parka and at last she could see the train; a thin line of silver above the mass of bodies in between. She took two steps forward and a voice boomed above, shaking the ground. Lea stopped and turned her eyes to the ceiling and saw the crimson, dragon-like form of the world famous Ragnarok.

_“This is Ocean Garden Grand Master Quistis Trepe! We are placing the train station under lockdown! Nobody leaves via train or exits the station! Trespassers will be detained! Stand down and prepare for a search!”_

Lea felt as if she had been doused with ice cold water. Her blood ran cold as her pulse raced out of control. Her hands began to shake. In her head was a mess of voices shouting, whispering, murmurring, shrieking and they were issuing warnings, defiant proclamations, ultimatums, ruminations, lamentations... the vision of Josh running across the field, almost to the crossing and time... oh, time would not wait and all she needed was a little more of it, but time was running out, now as it had then...

Lea squeezed her eyes shut. The voices were deafening.

_“Stop...” _she snarled through clenched teeth.

The sudden fall of silence made her open her eyes. Lea looked around. Right next to her, the Timber Maniacs type was frozen in mid-step, her hand in her jacket’s side pocket. She glanced to her right. A businessman in a three-piece black suit had been in the process of checking his wrist watch. Confused, Lea turned her eyes to the clock. Something was wrong with it. Lea realized that the seconds hand wasn’t moving, and the clock wasn’t emitting any sound. It had frozen. She continued looking around and saw that _everybody_ around her had frozen, some mid-movement even, upon her word.

She glanced up and saw Ragnarok, suspended in mid-air, its claws ready to catch and its weapons ready to spit vengeance.

There was a voice in the back of her head that kept repeating the variations of one thought. _SeeD is the enemy._

_SeeD is the apex predator._

_SeeD will kill you._

_SeeD will make you wish you were dead._

_SeeD is a worse monster than anything that walks_

_or crawls_

_or flies_

_or bites._

A part of her found this to be well and good, as it found this to be right. The recknoning had come to her without her having to seek it out, or dish it out on herself. SeeD would reckon with her and her sin.

Lea stepped onto the platform. She approached the train, but stopped just short of entering it. She began to sweat profusely as she became aware that she had no control over whatever seemed to have stopped time. This meant, to her, that it could just resume at any moment. She thought about boarding the train and going back to storage to stow away. She shook her head. No. They would search the storage car and if her luck held out, they would search it first. There was no way to avoid them once she had boarded. But she couldn’t stay.

Lea glanced to her left, to the tracks stretching out, emerging from the station and moving steadily onto the horizon. They would take her to Timber and then eventually to Dollet. From there, the only place she could go: Fisherman’s Horizon. The last port of call for the flotsam and jetsam of the world, the sanctuary. If it had worked for Seifer Almasy after the Second Sorceress War, then it could work for her. All she needed to remain there were a few useful skills so she could earn her keep. She knew about gardening, raising Chicobos, and a bit about farming vegetables. In a town full of the mechanically-inclined, technicians and engineers and alchemists and whatnot, it would be invaluable.

Or so she hoped.

But that would mean escaping. That would mean having to walk through miles and miles of open road. The road that was crawling with monsters that she could almost feel on her skin. Those that slithered and walked, and those that crawled; those that stuck to the shadows and those that dwelled out in the open. Those unlike her Chicobo, more like the Bite Bug that had killed it; those that she couldn’t reason with or could help. Between where she was and where she wanted to be, there was an army of them against the one of her.

_Could it really be any worse than if SeeD catches me?_

The thought completed itself on its own.

_What am I even running from..?_

The little voice in the back of her head answered.

_SeeD is death._

Lea turned. She walked to the edge of the platform and sat down. She dangled her legs and then hopped onto the tracks. She started to walk and then broke into a run and tore out of the train station, following the neat row of tracks sprawled out in front of her.

* * *

Artemisia woke up to the faint sound of her comm-link bleeping. Groggy, she reached for it, eyes darting to the wall to check the clock. 3:21 AM, internal. She slipped it on her ear and only then did she pick up the pattern. 3 short bursts, 2 long, 3 short. Defcon 1.

“Hello?”

_“Artemisia, get up and get dressed.”_

Lowcraft.

“Sir?”

_“Hangar bay, fifteen minutes.”_

“What’s this about?”

_“There’s been a murder in Dollet.”_

“Understood, sir.”

Artemisia clicked the comm-link closed. She rubbed her eyes. She then felt a familiar presence in her bedroom, on the corner. A pair of watchful eyes, a wisp of a ghost not quite seen, but felt keenly. Artemisia knew who it was. Ellone Loire.

“Coming?” she asked Ellone and stood up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The reason why Lea is more receptive to the influence of past Sorceresses is because: black magic tempts you and seduces you the more you use it. This was explained in "The Few Remaining Strands" with Edea having enjoyed Ultimecia's tutelage until the fateful night when Daniel wandered into the room. Having used her powers twice and under such traumatic conditions, and being young, Lea's mind is thus wide open.
> 
> Yes, I do borrow from the Bible for the Gospels.


	7. Trails

**(Day 4)**

* * *

_Cold. Nothing but the cold. Down to the bone. Down to the marrow. Cold. So cold... so lifeless. Inside the chamber, trapped, struggling against the grain, pushing the rock up the hill, trying to cross that invisible line. Held fast, held tight, held in place. Held up. Limbs, one less than supposed to have been, twitching minutely, muscles shaking with micro-contractions. Trying, reaching... right at her fingertips, right at her fingertips..._

_The familiar presence. Nearby. In front of her. Outside the chamber, trapped, struggling against the grain, pushing the rock up the hill, with the right tool to cross that invisible line._

_The voice, speaking in tongues she could understand._

_“That’s why I can change it. I never understood why until now. But I can. It doesn’t have to be the way it was, the way it will be.”_

_Mechanical hiss. Outside the chamber, trapped, but unfurling, revealing, opening up to swallow that single droplet that had changed everything before and would change everything again – the blood that should not have been spilled. The taint of it, the sin, the profane reality of its presence in the vial, in the hands of the silhouette standing in front of the machine._

_Please... please... please..._

_Save me... save me... save me..._

_Deliver me... deliver me... deliver me..._

_Kill me... kill me... kill me..._

_“All this time, and we never knew why this place was in lockdown, just that it was. Like the Garden Coup – not until it was too late. A sin for a sin.”_

_Drip. Drip. Please... save me... deliver me... kill me..._

_Cold. So cold... so lifeless._

* * *

Ellone woke up with a gasp and a scream that barely tore its way through the sharp intake of breath. Her heart pounding in her chest, she reached for the glass and back-handed it, sending it flying off the coffee table. It shattered and Ellone screamed, shaking hands reaching for her ears.

Her eyes darted towards the clock. Five minutes.

_What was that?_

She shivered. The sense of cold that had invaded her dream had seeped into her reality, despite the room being at a comfortable temperature. She pulled her knees to her chin.

_When was that..?_

Who_ was that?_

* * *

Quistis’ eyes scanned the report as Jan stood to attention in front of her. It was cobbled-together, fast and loose, but it would do for now. Quistis saw the only item she cared to see: the names of the victims. Jessica, Jhon and Josh Silvera. This left one member of the family, according to the Galbadian Citizenship database: daughter, elder sister to Josh, Lea. Lea Silvera. The blessing wasn’t that they had identities to the corpses found, it was that they had an identity to give to the Sorceress. Lea Silvera.

The citizenship registry entry came complete with a picture, which Quistis knew by law was required to be renewed every six months until she turned twenty-one, and yearly after that. This meant that the picture staring at her was at most six months old, given that she was only eighteen. Long, straight chestnut hair that barely went past her shoulders. A fair complexion, but pale blue eyes that reminded her of the funeral scene she had still not recovered fully from. A thin face, pronounced cheekbones and full lips. Distinctive enough to be recognized, a Winhill beauty if Quistis had ever seen one.

As she looked at the picture, Quistis thought about some of the war time novels that had cropped up over the years.

_I have seen the face of the enemy and she looks just like a normal teenage girl._

Quistis set the paper down amidst a sea of paperwork. The most prominent one, kept in a red folder, filled with the envisioned work roster. It was filled with four groups. Equally distributed among them were technicians, engineers, skilled and unskilled laborers – anything for round-the-clock repair work on the power plant. An addendum page designated their protection while they worked, as without power, the honeycomb shield could not function and so the monsters could come out at any time.

Quistis glanced at Lea’s picture again.

_I don’t remember that I was that young._

“Let’s hear it.” She told Jan.

“Sir! The cause of fire was undetermined, but, Grand Master Almasy’s observation was correct. The house seems to have burned all at once. That said, our mage could also sense a draw point beginning to emerge from the ruin, which indicates that pure magic was at work.”

“How many bodies?” Quists asked.

“Three. Two older and one young.”

Quistis nodded. “The brother and the parents. We know that the brother is already dead and was in the house at the time of the fire. This means that the Sorceress is still at large.”

“Sir.”

“Anything else?”

“Yes, sir. There was an... anomaly.”

Quistis raised an eyebrow. “As in?”

“Local fire department never got a call, nor did they intervene. The house went up like a tinderbox, as Grand Master has observed, but not even the neighboring houses called anyone. From my brief interviews with them, they were present at the time of the fire, but those who opened the door were nothing short of shocked, sir, at the fact that the neighboring house had burned down. It was almost as if they never saw it.”

“It is possible.” Quistis said, leaning back and crossing her arms, “Sorceress Rinoa’s gift was the casting of illusions, so if she can set fire to a house and slip by us unnoticed, it is possible that she has used this power.”

Jan didn’t comment.

“That’ll be all.” Quistis said, “Dismissed.”

Jan saluted her, turned on her heels and left. Quistis reached for her comm-link. This was one of three that she had given to Seifer and Ellone and only had one channel it could connect to. She slipped it on and clicked it. It bleeped five times before Ellone’s voice came through.

_“What is it?”_ she asked, almost frantic, _“Quistis, what is it?”_

"Nothing apocalyptic, Elle, calm down, please.”

_“I’m sorry... it’s just that the last time this thing rang...”_

“I know. I’m sorry.”

_“Are you calling about the assignment?”_

“Yes.”

_“I couldn’t. I can’t seem to find her. Her story came to me easily, but... instead of her, I keep finding... someone else.”_

“Who?”

Quistis heard Ellone sigh. 

_Ultimecia.”_

* * *

Artemisia stood in front of the Duke's mansion. Pale stone walls rose before her and the sheer width of the homestead humbled her with its size. Three wide steps and there was a porch, columns holding up its ceiling and beyond that, heavy, ornate doors leading into the foyer.

Her comm-link bleeped. She clicked it on and drew her sidearm, the revolver.

"Sir?" Artemisia said, "What am I doing here?"

_"The Duchess called this in."_

"It's the Duke... isn't it?"

_"Yes. She found him in the family library. Move in."_

"Yes, sir."

Weapon held out but not raised, trigger finger stretched along the side of the barrel, Artemisia pushed the double doors and went in. On either side of the far end of the foyer were stairs. The hall beyond stretched on, illuminated by warm lights embedded into the walls. Artemisia noted that there were no signs of a forced entry - not at the front door, anyway.

Directly across from the door was a small, decorative table holding up a thin, elegant porcelain vase. Family heirloom, worth millions of Gil. Untouched. So, not a theft attempt gone wrong either.

Cautious, she peered up the stairs. The layout of the mansion was known to anyone who had studied the Garden Coup, which was a mandatory course in their long-term strategy education. If her memory served, the Dollet family library was on the second floor, down the hall from the conference room.

Artemisia looked down at the maroon carpeting going up the steps. Undisturbed.

She spoke, as quietly as she could, into the comm-link.

"So far, this doesn't look like a break-in. This makes it either a stealth assassination, or someone they knew, a guest maybe... nobody else lives here but the Duke and the Duchess."

She didn't wait for Lowcraft's answer. She went up the stairs, gun ready, and onto the second floor. Dead ahead, past the bathroom with its door hanging open (that she checked, just to make sure) was the hallway leading to the conference room. The private library would be two doors down, and as Artemisia took position on the right side of the hallway, she saw that the lights were on in there.

"The library is either occupied, or it was. I'll check it out now."

* * *

“You’ve been following who now?” Quistis blurted out as she sat up straight, _“Ultimecia?”_

_“That’s the Old High Estharian spelling and pronounciation of her name. I still don't know her last name. But her name, the name she uses, is Artemisia. She’s a SeeD.”_

“She’s a **_what!?_”**

_“That’s not all. The thing that Squall said... in his last will about me, about witch-kin.”_

Quistis’ heart skipped a beat. “Oh don’t tell me...”

_“She’s like me. A witch-kin.”_

Quistis leaned forward and cradled her head in her hands.

“This changes things...” she said, “Though...”

_“Yes?”_

“Alright.” Quistis said, “Stay on Ultimecia. Try to get information, any information at all that could help us in the long run. For one thing, we can prevent her from ever signing up-“

_“She’s witch-kin, Quistis. She’s protected by Squall’s last will. If you intend to keep her out, you need to keep me out.”_

“Shit.”

Quistis knew that she couldn’t amend his last will, nor could she alter any changes to the Garden Law that he had made without good cause. Ellone’s provisional rank and position was very much a valuable addition to their ranks, Quistis had to admit.

Shit. They were defenseless against that.

“Fine,” Quistis conceded, “So she signs up... then what?”

_“She’s a member of the Intelligence Unit, about a hundred years from now. Last I saw her, she was going to Dollet to investigate a murder.”_

“Whose?”

_“I don’t know.”_

The doors of Quistis’ office opened and Seifer walked in. The look on his face told her that something was wrong. As always. She sighed.

“Stay on her, then. Your mission now is to stay on Ultimecia. Can you do that?”

_“Yes.”_

“Pace yourself. She’s due at a time when we're all dead, so we have all the time in the world.”

_“Okay.”_

“Talk later.”

Seifer climbed the three steps and stood in front of the console. He stuck his hands in his pockets.

“Ultimecia?” he asked.

“Long story. Any news?”

“Local authorities found nothing. No eye-witnesses. A few people, the woman at the ticket counter especially, recognized her picture, but there was no sign of her. Not in the station, not on the train. We looked.”

“She might be casting illusions.” Quistis said, “We can’t know for sure, but according to Jan, nobody saw, heard or, I don’t know, smelled the fire.”

“Fire like that?” Seifer asked. Quistis nodded. “Shit, alright. Red magic it is then. What a mindfuck... literally.”

“She’s at large then.” Quistis said, “I’m going to see who we can spare for Galbadia. She’ll be headed to FH, and to get there, she needs to go to Dollet. We can cut her off in Timber.”

“Yeah, about that...”

“What’s up?”

Seifer managed a weary smile. “You’re gonna love this.” 

* * *

Lea opened her eyes to the unfamiliar settings of a forest. Trees stretched out in every direction and the branch that had served as her pillow was hurting her head. She woke up to hunger and thirst and soreness in every muscle in her body. A flash and everything came back to her – the fire, the bodies, the smell, the walk here, the miracle of encountering no monsters and feeling exhausted enough to fall asleep out in the open, where she shouldn’t be, but not caring whether something came for her during the night.

She sat up and stretched as best she could, feeling the knots in her body straining and blinked rapidly, trying to get the crust out of her eyes. The first thing she saw when her vision adjusted was the googly eyes of a Funghar.

No. A Fung_ua_r. It was female, evident by the sharp angles of its umbrella-shaped, yellow top... the males, Lea remembered, had rounder tops.

Lea let out a yelp and backed against the tree, causing the Funguar to let out a gargling sound and sort of bounce back as well. It stayed there, swaying, but not in the way Lea had see them do when they tried to make sure the shrubbery they were about to eat was clean of bugs or things they couldn’t digest. It stood there, vibrating from top to bottom, its eyes spinning in their sockets. Lea tried to remember what her father had told her about them: that they were nothing more than living mushrooms with teeth, that their top being edible and, even when uncooked, delicious.

The Funguar let out a gigging sound and inched closer, folding its teeth inwards. Lea wasn’t sure how to take that. The species, while hostile without being territorial, were herbivores. A thin strand of pain sunk into her heart when she recalled her father’s wildlife lectures and his love for camping.

The Funguar, giggling still stood next to her. As Lea watched, it bent down, entier body making like jelly, and curled inwards. Lea barely had time to close her eyes before she saw a flash of teeth clamp around the top of the creature. She couldn’t cup her hands on her ears in time and heard the sound of flesh tearing... something inside her reminded her that the Funguar was mostly a vegetable up there, but still... the sound it...

With a wet splat, the Funguar threw a quarter of its top onto Lea’s lap. It stood there, giggling, black liquid seeping through the gash on its body, staining the razor-sharp teeth. It vibrated all over, shuddering and it cocked its entire body towards the discarded piece, gurgling as it did.

Lea felt her heart skip a beat when she understood what it meant.

_Eat._

She glared at the creature.

_It wants me to eat it... eat this part of it._

Lea reluctantly took the piece. Before the Funguar’s watchful eyes, she bit down and started chewing. The monster giggled with delight, bleeding still from the top down. The flesh was cold but richly textured and to a hungry Lea, beyond delicious. The creature, its wound starting to ease up, snuggled closer to her and rubbed up against her, giggling.

Lea knew that to be a sign of affection.

She ate in silence. The Funguar gradually settled down, its giggling died down and its movements slowed to nothing. It breathed a contented breath and fell asleep against Lea as she ate. Once the Funguar’s head piece was gone, Lea felt the natural salt of it coat her tongue. She was thirsty. She remembered her father’s lessons, that water was more crucial than food. She knew that she needed to get up – despite the fact that nobody would be around but her and the creatures of the forest, she needed to move.

She turned to push the Funguar away, just enough to get up. She put her hands on the creaure’s head, careful not to touch the wound...

The monster felt cold to the touch.

Lea withdrew her hand as if she had just touched a hot poker. Her pulse quickening, she bent over and peered into its googly eyes. The were like glass - glazed over and empty. It wasn’t just still, it was dead. Lea felt the hot blood, or whatever it was that Funguars and Funghars bled, clinging to her sweater. Her eyes widened and her breath quickened when she realized that it had bled out by her side.

With a barely-restrained shriek, Lea stood up, hands in the air, unwilling to touch the dead body. A thought eruptd in her head, burning everything else out.

_Everything I touch dies._

Lea couldn’t take it. She picked her direction, away from whence she had come and muttered an apology under her breath before running off. She ran through the forest without stopping, aware that the monsters that lurked therein had contented themselves with only watching her.

* * *

“Repeat that.” Quistis said as she entered the hangar bay, the red folder in her hand. Seifer, grinning his vicious grin, obeyed:

“They’re calling it passive resistance. A bunch of them are just sitting around in the middle of the street. Hyne, some of them even have picket signs. It’s fucking hilarious.”

“What about this is hilarious?” Quistis asked as she turned her steps towards the APC hovercraft waiting in the middle of the staging ground, its exterior navy blue, and the golds and whites and blacks of the SeeD cross emblazoned on its side hatch, “We’re probably going to have to deal with them by force, you realize that, right?”

“Exactly what’s so hilarious about it,” Seifer responded as the side hatch opened up to let them in, “We’re all they’ve got and they’re too fucking stupid to realize that.”

As Quistis climbed inside, all she could think about was:

_I wish to Hyne we weren’t... and I know they do too._


	8. The Oppressors

**(Day 4)**

* * *

The sign read: **SEED OF OPPRESSION. **The one next to her: **THE FLOWER OF DESTRUCTION.**

A unique one among them just said, **I WANT MY HOME BACK.**

As the hovercraft descended, Quistis counted at least fifty in attendance, sitting in broken rows, taking up the entire street. They were watched over by two SeeD squads, one Seifer recognized to be Mu, mixed in with cadets. They had their weapons, but didn’t seem tense or engaged, Seifer noted, which was well and good so far. At least they hadn’t tried to pull rank or authority on the civilians, which was always a fast track to disaster. For Seifer, the entire situation recalled memories of a very painful bender in Deling, trying to uncover the game of the Deling Orphans, trying to get to the bottom of the Garden Coup.

Although told by Matron repeatedly never to speak ill of the dead, Seifer couldn’t quite oblige that.

He_ destroyed their city and toppled their fucking empire, and all we have to show for it is a fucking mess._

_Thanks, Leonhart. Fuck you very much._

“I miss the chatter.” Seifer told Quistis.

“So do I.” Quistis said, “I also miss when we didn’t have to board an APC to go play crowd control.”

The hovercraft landed with a shake and a loud thud. The exit hatch hissed open, inviting the afternoon air in. Quistis unbuckled her safety harness, grabbed the folder and her cane and got out, followed by Seifer. Upon seeing them, the SeeDs and cadets saluted them and the crowd simply sneered, almost in unison. Seifer rolled his eyes. This was going great already.

Quistis looked at them. She had by and large avoided going down to the street level for the past five days because of this: she had coordinated the establishment of an Esthar City perimeter, had determined the routes of law enforcement patrols, had even allowed for few hours to go by while complaints and outrage had been registered at the call center before batteries had stared to die out. But being on the ground, in front of a bunch of silent civilians was different. Quistis saw that they all had strips of masking tape covering their mouths – black Xs drawn on their faces.

_Oh, that’s just great._

Seifer crossed his arms and waited. Quistis stepped forward and leaned on her cane.

“Anyone speak for any of you?” she asked.

No response.

“Fine. Do you know what this is?” Quistis demonstrated the red folder. No response. “This is a list of people, workers, who will be assigned to work on the power plant repairs so we can get the honeycomb shield up and running and restore amenities. It consists of four equally-numbered teams, fully equipped and fully capable, which will work in rotating 6-hour shifts. Our timetable puts the estimated time of repair at six months, faster if we make some teams work double rotating shifts. This folder contains your future.”

Still no response, though by the uneasy shifting of those in the middle, Quistis could tell that she was at least being heard.

“Hey, if you don’t want us here,” Quistis shrugged and threw the red folder away. Sheets of paper flew out of it once it hit the ground and two pages went towards the protesters. One of them, a man, snatched the stray page out of the air. He started to read it. "We can just pull back.” Quistis said, “I know you don’t like the fact that we’ve brought in Galbadians to take over. So if you want us gone, just say it. I’ll pull out, and take every Galbadian out of the continent today. You’ll be left with a grand total of twelve people to keep the perimeter around the city, keep monsters from overruning the city, enforce the law, whatever. Twelve is all you’ve got.”

The man that had caught the page removed the tape over his mouth.

“My name is on this list." he said.

“And you are?” Seifer asked.

“Jann Kale. I’m a mechanical engineer.” He said.

“Kale... I remember the name.” Quistis said, “Your daughter was vetted.”

“Yes. Not too long ago.”

“The Edea Sanction.” Seifer said, “Your daughter was on the list.”

“...and now I’m on yours.”

A few of the sitters gestured at him to sit down and shut up.

“Well, Mister Kale,” Quistis said, “Since you are the only one who speaks, we’ll ask you. Do you want us here? Do you want to help Esthar? Or would you rather we just packed and left?”

Seifer saw Kale squirm. He was on the spot and he knew it; and the fact that the fate of the continent, at least according to him, rested on the next sentence to come out of his mouth made him more than self-conscious. Seifer smiled. Well, at least the day wouldn’t be a total waste.

“Well," Jann said, "I know some of the people on this list and we can... you know, help.”

Quistis nodded. “That’s what I said.”

“Well, I... for one, would like to help.”

Quistis smiled, “So then, why don’t you help me locate the ones you recognize? I could use a spokesperson to intercede on my behalf.”

The protesters all glared at Jann Kale, who was standing there with tape hanging from the side of his lips. He looked around, sort of clueless and then stepped through the crowd and made his way to Quistis. He eyed her curiously, as if to determine if her gentle smile held any malicious intent behind it. Seifer knew that _that_ particular smile could hold anything behind it, but there was no use in baring that.

“Alright,” Kale said, “For now.”

“All that I ask.” Quistis said and held out her hand.

Seifer couldn’t hold back a chuckle when Jann Kale took it. 

* * *

Artemisia went on and stepped into the Dollet Duke’s private library and immedately wished that she had never gotten out of bed. The scene was one to behold: the Duke was lying dead on the floor, one of his bloodstained hands still holding a leather-bound volume, one that fit perfectly into his palm. Hell, his middle finger was still holding the page he was on open. His death-grip on it told Artemisia that it had been in his hand when he had died.

How he died was no mystery. Artemisia recognized the ornate, floral-patterned handle of the Duke’s letter opener sticking out of his neck. His hand wrapped tightly around the handle. His blood had sprayed everywhere – the floor, the leather-bound volumes lining the shelves, the ceiling... everywhere but where Artemisia was standing, which told her that somewhere in this house was a bundle of clothes stained with the Duke’s blood.

Lowcraft’s voice buzzed in through the comm-link.

_“Well?”_ she prodded.

“Gone a gusher.” Artemisia said, “That’s what they used to say.”

_“That’s not why you’re there.”_ Lowcraft scowled, _“I want you to tell me what happened.”_

Artemisia noticed the angle of the blade. Tilted slightly towards the Duke’s feet at a nearly 45-degree angle, meaning that it had been someone shorter than him. Someone whose feet could fit in the spot Artemisia’s boots could barely occupy without touching the rest of the blood.

“The Duchess seems a likely suspect, sir.” Artemisia said, “See, the blade was tilted too far up for someone of his height to have done this.”

“_There is an alternative.”_

Artemisia’s brow furrowed. She hated this part of it. She appreciated not being afforded any luxuries just because she had the gift, sure. But sometimes, just going over intelligence for the sake of having gone over it was tiresome. This was one of those moments.

“If the Duke wasn’t five foot nine, I would say maybe his killer had stood behind him, but at this angle, the killer would have to be either a giant, or hold the letter opener at such an extreme angle that it would give them carpal tunnel. Furthermore, there should be someone right where I am standing and according to the blood on the floor, the Duke does not seem to have moved much after he was struck.”

_“Excellent. The camera feed shows that his hand is on the handle of the weapon. Couldn’t he have just killed himself?”_

“Not at this angle. He would have aimed for the hollow space under his jawbone, or at least closer to it than this.”

_“Excellent. This makes?”_

“The Duchess the most likely suspect, because at five foot six, she is short enough. Plus, we know for a fact that she was for the renewal of the Tilmitt Pact, whereas the Duke was against it.”

_“One problem with your theory, however,”_ Lowcraft sighed, _“is that if she did it, then she committed high treason, which strips her of her titles and authority. The Duke has no children. The succession line continues with the Duchess’ children, or rather it would, if she had any. It makes it impossible for her to renew the Pact if you find out that it was her.”_

“...then do you really want me to see, sir?”

_“Yes. Despite how nice an opportunity that would be to secure our future for another hundred years, I don’t think we should go about that on the shoulders of a murderess.”_

“Agreed.”

_“Do you need shelter?”_

“No, sir. I highly doubt the Duchess would murder me in the middle of all this.”

_“Nevertheless, I’ll direct Kappa Squad to your location. Keep your eyes peeled in the meantime.”_

“Yes, sir.”

Artemisia stepped over the Duke’s body and found herself an armchair with attractive curves and a back shaped perfectly for lumbar support. She settled in. She reached and unbuttoned her sleeve and rolled it up. She took off her belt and wrapped it around her arm. She squeezed her fist and pumped once, twice and held it. She reached into her pocket and pulled out the hypodermic needle, the syringe already filled with the concoction that would help her. A shot of Elloire.

She felt for the vein and once she found it, inserted the needle. She put her thumb on the plunger and pressed on it. Her eyelids followed the pace of the sedative spreading throughout her body. 

* * *

_Ellone peered down the hallway. The figure moving from floorboard to floorboard did so with feathery, graceful movements, leaving Ellone with the distinct impression that she knew which ones wouldn’t creak. Looking down, Ellone saw her stockinged feet underneath the dress. No shoes. Huh. She didn’t want to make a sound._

_The hallway was lit by lamps embedded into the walls casting warm, orange lights. Ellone saw the high cheekbones and prominent, round brow draped in shadows. In her left hand, the gleaming, golden letter opener, sharpened into a knife._

_Her heart beating a little faster, Ellone took a step forward to follow her down._

_“I’m working here.”_

_Ellone wondered if she could guess that she would feel rather comforted by the presence of Ultimecia._

_“I’m sorry.” Ellone said, “I can’t quite control it when it comes to people I barely know.”_

_Artemisia pointed at the Duchess, “You’re following their bloodline. Why?”_

_“Whose?”_

_“The Dollet Royalty.”_

_Ellone looked around in mock amazement, “Is that where we are?”_

_Artemisia nodded. “Yes. That’s the Duchess. And be glad she can’t sense us. This is actually important for me.”_

_They followed her down the hall and to where Ellone recognized to be the Duke’s private library. The door was hanging open with the key still in the keyhole. The library, a narrow space of wall-to-wall bookshelves, was open and showed the future Duke, as Ellone thought of him, with a book in his hand... no, a notebook. She walked around him and peered over his shoulder._

_Her eyes widened when she saw her own handwriting on the page. Ellone hastily ducked down and checked out the label on the spine while Artemisia, smiling, leaned against a bookshelf._

_“It’s one of yours.” Artemisia said, “Ellone Diaries, volume two of two.”_

_“This is just bizarre.” Ellone said._

_“Brother?”_

_The Duke turned to the Duchess and Ellone saw that their eyes were the same brilliant blue. The features of their faces could fit the same mold if modified very slightly. Shave off his Adam’s apple, heighten is hairline, raise his eyebrows a bit and reduce his height, and there we go._

_The Duchess stood in front of him, hands clasped behind her back._

_“You’re consulting the diary again?" she asked, "You’ve memorized it front to back.”_

_The Duke nodded, “Yes. And I will keep reading it until I am sure that I am not throwing away our independence on a bid to ensure a future that I do not know for certain will happen while I still live.”_

_“Really, now? You know it will. That witch-kin of theirs... you’ve seen it.”_

_“Oh, not this again!” Artemisia groaned._

_Ellone glanced at Artemisia and saw that she had clenched her teeth. The look on her face was one of anger._

_“I am not even Esthar-born!” Artemisia shouted at the figures standing in the room with them, as if they could hear her, “I was born in Timber, for Hyne’s sake! What’s the point of reading my name in a dead language?”_

_“Maybe.” The Duke went on, “Maybe not. Ellone Loire’s insight is valuable.”_

_The Duchess frowned, “You need a dead woman’s word to tell you that you are not doing what you need to do? Voting for discord when unity is needed? Withdrawing from the Pact will not help us, and you know it.”_

_“We’ve been enslaved by the Sorceress, or SeeD, for long enough. First we fled from Centra and came to this forsaken continent. Generation after generation, we’ve had to rely on SeeD to protect us from the tyrants of Galbadia, and the Pact? The exchange of our loyalty and children for their brand of peace? I refuse. I would rather die on my feet than live in servitude to them.”_

_“Are you watching this, witch-kin?” the Duchess called out, eyes scanning the room. Artemisia’s eyes went wide. Ellone shivered. “See what I do for your end. See what I would sacrifice just to see that things happen as they are meant to. This is the world that will kill you, in the end.”_

_Ellone let out a horrified shriek as the Duchess, like lightning, moved forward and struck – she jabbed the letter opener into her brother’s throat before he had a chance to protest, or to ask who she was talking to. She planted her hand on the bottom of the hilt and pushed. Her elbow jerked forward and buried it in as deep as it could go._

_The Duke choked. He choked again as his free hand went to his neck. He gripped the handle tightly, which was when the Duchess lurched forward, grabbed his wrist and twisted the blade. She took a step back and let the gash unleash a torrent of red, painting the shelves and her dress as his knees buckled. He grabbed hold of a nearby bookshelf to support himself, eyes looking at her, accusing her with his sight._

_“I’m sorry.” the Duchess said, “I’m so sorry, but this is what must be done – for our future, as well as everyone else’s. You only read the diaries, brother. I... _understand_ them.”_

_The Duke gurgled. Blood kept spurting out, spending him, he shook and fell onto his back. His fingers curled around the diary flexed and held on fast, the open page catching the final spurts out of the wound, red dots littering the elegant cursive. He looked at his sister in utter disbelief, but right at the end of his struggle, before he let go, Ellone saw, to her horror, understanding and acceptance in the Duke’s eyes._

_“Great Hyne and Vascaroon...” Artemisia let out, “Great Hyne and Vascaroon this... why...”_

* * *

_SeeD is the enemy._

_SeeD will kill you._

_SeeD will destroy you._

Lea ignored the voices trying to get her attention as she glared at the walls of Timber, taking their measure. Beside her, the Cockatrice she had rode in on panted, exhausted. The creature had offered itself to her as a mode of faster transport, just as the Funguar had provided food and the Cactuar had provided water. The harder part had been trying to gauge whether or not she could turn her desire to not be seen into actuallity, which was difficult without any other people around. The monsters who knew she was there had checked out just fine, but they were monsters - simple creatures, in comparison.

Lea knew that she couldn’t turn invisible, not really, but she knew that she had red magic in her and that it could work in her favor.

But right now, she had bigger things to worry about. Right outside the forest, at the city’s entrance where two local guards stood, rifles in hand, was a poster. It was the picture that she remembered and hated, the one where one of her eyes was narrower than the other, giving her the appearance of being too lazy to pose for a picture. The poster had also been nailed to the exit (or from Timber’s standpoint the entrance) of the forest, and Lea guessed that it would also be all over the town.

She pressed her back against a tree. There was space to be cleared between the forest and the wall, and she knew that even if she doubled back, went around and entered at a different point, her poster would most likely be plastered all over the train station, making it nearly impossible to go by unnoticed. The possibility that someone might see her was too much of a risk.

Lea clenched her fist in anger. What use was being the Sorceress if she couldn’t even save herself? What good was having monsters obey her every whim and cater to her every need if she couldn’t just walk into some shop or even just wander the streets of a city?

Although... there was someone in this particular city that could potentially help her. Someone whose high-profile had always seemed rather ill-fitting for her; someone who had the ability to peer into the past... and who knew, maybe with her gift and Lea’s power, there would be a chance to alter it... just slightly, just enough to change all of this.

But the question was: would she help?

Lea didn’t know.

She reached out, trying to sense if there was a Chaterpillar nearby. There were three. She thought that she was cold and she would need something to both warm her up and to conceal her from prying eyes. When she heard the rustle close by, she knew that they would rise to the occasion.

Monsters, it seemed, were better than people now.

The voice in the back of her head whispered as the Chaterpillars got to work on her blanket.

_SeeD are the real monsters._


	9. Denial Strategy

**(Day 34)**

* * *

_SeeD is fate. SeeD is the killer. SeeD is the apex predator._

The apartment building was one of the new ones. Three stories high. Lea knew that the occupant she was looking for was on the top floor. Public knowledge, really. There were two ways to get to her: the fire exit or the front door. It was by some unforeseen miracle that she had been able to slip past the guards and managed to keep to the back alleys and interconnected gardens while using cats to distract anyone who would pay too much attention to her.

All the while, the voices in her head, plural now, kept repeating the same thing.

_SeeD is the end. SeeD is death._

In some ways, being where she was felt like the inevitable that she had been trying to delay. She had spent a month hiding out all over Timber. She had occupied fire exits, back alleys, even a few of the less fortunate areas. The slums had been kind to her - in fact, the company of the poorer Timber locals had been the one place she had allowed herself to be seen.

But no matter what she had done, how far she delved into her own gifts or wanted it differently, there was no past to change without the power of the witch-kin. They were similar, Lea thought; and, pathetically enough, Ellone Loire could be the closest thing she had to a family left alive. Her parents were ashes and her brother... dead before he had become so. The memory, still a fresh wound eager to bleed, pricked her and Lea steeled herself, best as she could, for the encounter ahead.

There was no point in running from it.

The voice in the back of her head said:

_Fate gets you in the end._

The front door was not an option. Lea looked around. There were relatively few people on the streets. Mostly just those going off to work, to their places to be. Her place to be was right here, she knew, but getting in was a different story.

Still, she had to.

She circled around the building, entering the small space between it and the adjacent apartment. The fire exit was there. Looking at it, however, she knew that all she needed was inside her already. She didn't need the steps. Not when she could fly.

She tapped on her chest and whispered, _“Float.”_

Her voice sounded foreign to her ears and she couldn’t help but feel a rush of embarrasment at the timbre of it. She felt lighter and ligther until she kicked off the ground and rose up to the level of the first floor. She grabbed hold of the railing while her feet continued to rise. She steered herself around and draggd her legs over the railing. She then tapped on her arm.

_“Dispel.”_

It felt natural, using this pale shade of magic inside of her; and the words, the commands, they all came naturally to her. Nothing more than expressions to guide the mind, she knew, and the little voice in the back of her head agreed that she could do more than just cast para-magic spells or control monsters. But this would do for now.

As Lea began crawling up the steps, no cats this time, she thanked every god, Strong or no, for making Ellone Loire’s address known.

* * *

Artemisia pushed the door of the Duke’s office open slowly, cautiously. She had her eight-shot revolver in hand. The empty window frames of the room with no windows and the ornate drapes, gold over purple, came into view first. Then, she saw the bookshelf lining the far wall. Artemisia pushed the door open and entered gun-first, barrel pointing dead ahead, at the head of the Duchess who was sitting at the Duke's desk. In the warm, orange light of the desk lamp, her high cheekbones and rather angular face drawing shadows. Her full lips, bright red, curled into a knowing smile.

The next thing Artemisia noticed was the blood pooled on the desk. The Duchess had put both of her hands onto the desk and they were resting in shallow pools of blood.

Artemisia realized that it was to avoid getting shot straight out the gate.

“Hello.” The Duchess said.

Artemisia’s comm-link buzzed.

_“This is Kappa Squad. We’re three minutes out.”_

Artemisia clicked the comm-link open. “This is Artemisia. Stand down.”

_“Our orders were to-“_

“Then get here, but don’t come inside. If this goes sideways, so you can easily get in on it.”

_“I don’t take orders from you.”_

“I outrank you, SL. Do what you’re told.”

A moment’s silence.

“_Whatever, sir.”_

“Good soldier.”

Artemisia clicked the comm-link closed. She glared at the Duchess, who was smiling pleasantly at the barrel pointed at her.

“Talk.” Artemisia said.

“About?” the Duchess asked.

“Why?”

“Oh. You mean the murder.” She giggled and that was Artemisia noticed the beads of sweat at the roots of her hair. She wanted to believe that the Duchess wasn’t going to crack up, but had no way of knowing. “Simple. My brother wanted to secede. And he would’ve done it, too.”

“But why kill him yourself? Why confess to me?”

“Your evidence, witch-craft or otherwise, is admissable in any court.”

Artemisia raised an eyebrow.

“Which means,” the Duchess went on, “no matter what, I committed high treason. The only punishment for that is death by firing squad and once that happens, Esthar Garden will take control of the Empire. Our almost two hundred years’ of reign will come to an end.”

“That still doesn’t answer my question: why?”

“I’ve read the diaries..." The Duchess said, her voice almost sad, "...again and again. The conclusion is inescapable. Ellone Loire’s accounting is impeccable and her findings..." she shook her head"...absolute. Why?” gleam of madness in her eyes, an insane smile, “Becuse I believe the world should be united against you.”

“No.” Artemisia ground her teeth, “I am not Ultimecia.”

“Aren’t you?” the Duchess giggled, “You do know that you are the only one with that name, don’t you? In all of history, you are the only one.”

Artemisia shook her head, “I am _not_ defined by my name.”

“Aren’t we all? I am the Duchess of Dollet. My brother was the Duke. You are a SeeD. We are all defined by our names. Your parents named you this, knowing what it meant. They meant it. They meant for you to become our oppressor, the Sorceress.”

“No! You're wrong!"

"Am I?"

"I am not going to turn into the goddamn Sorceress!”

“Won’t you?" the Duchess chuckled, "The world is at the precipice now... right now. Here. In this moment. Ellone Loire was there when your reign of terror ended, and she is, she... oh.” The Duchess pursed her lips.

"What!?" Artemisia asked, feeling cold sweat pouring out of every pore.

“You can’t just go back and read her accounts, can you..? You’re forbidden. Your Grand Master is keeping the truth at arm’s length.”

Artemisia’s hands were starting to shake from a mixture of anger, resentment... and fear.

“Wh-what does that have to do with anything?” she asked.

“_Everything_.” The Duchess said, “You last saw her when you were witnessing my sacrifice, didn’t you?”

Artemisia’s eyes widened. The Duchess smiled.

“Exactly. " she said, "See, witch, time, it will not wait. No matter how hard you hold on, it escapes you.”

Artemisia would have rolled her eyes if she wasn't tense from head to toe, “I know the speech. Everybody does.”

“One day, you will give it as you plunge this world that has seen a century of peace into total war.”

“I am just the witch-kin, I am not a _witch!_ I am a SeeD! I exist to kill the Sorceress, not _become_ her!”

“It’s inevitable. As inevitable as this moment.” The Duchess smiled. One hand left the table and reached for the desk's drawers.

“Hands where I can see them!” Artemisia said, gun ready, trained directly at her chest, the body mass, “Now!”

“Oh, come now, you think I went to all this trouble just to let you drag me to court, or a brig? Oh, no, there is just one last thing you need to do. Just one." the Duchess looked Artemisia dead in the eye, "I will deny you your coveted privilege. I will deny _you."_

A small lock clacked behind the desk. Artemisia's finger found the curve of the trigger.

"Stop!" she said.

"I was sent here to deny you, witch. As the Gospels say,” she giggled, “ _‘And behold, I shall be a blight upon you.’ "_

The sound of a drawer being pulled open.

"In the years to come, you will look upon this moment and see exactly where I’ve denied you your trespasses. You will see when I made you what you are, you insufferable _witch!”_

The Duchess reached in and grabbed, Artemisia guessed, the gun.

“Put your hands up!” Artemisia put her finger on the trigger, “Now!”

The sound of a hammer being cocked back filled the room.

* * *

Seifer pulled back his right leg in an arc, rotating his torso as he did so and the punch meant for his stomach swished past him, giving him the room to counter, which he used to spin on his left leg and land a solid punch into the poor kid’s side. As the kid winced, Seifer strafed around to face him directly. The kid swung, predictably with his right, which Seifer dodged, and landed a punch on his side again, eliciting a strained grunt from the trainee.

“Watch your flank.” Seifer said, staying on his toes, “You keep treating me like I’m a fucking post, I’m-“ a left, an attempt to confuse, Seifer dodged and went under, one-two on the kid’s stomach. He reached out, grabbed the kid by the neck and rammed his knee into his stomach cavity, causing him to double over; a moment he used to kick his legs from under him.

The kid landed onto the mat with a thud, which Seifer took as the time to rest and finish his sentence:

“I’m a moving target.” He said, trying to steady his breathing, “How old are you, again?”

Cradling his sides, the kid, whose name Seifer recalled to be Attam, panted:

“I’m... I’m fifteen.”

Seifer clacked his tongue. “Shit, and I’m more than thrice your age, too.”

“You’re... too fast...”

“Too fast? I’m a fuckin’ geezer in comparison!” Seifer couldn’t help but chuckle, “You should be way faster than me!”

“Sir?” Cile, a girl asked.

Seifer put his hands on his hips. Him and Attam were ringed by the cadets that he was supposed to be teaching martial arts to - the second batch completing basic through the accelerated program Quistis had come up with. Two weeks of non-stop, one-on-one sparring matches. First, the moves. Then, the practice. Then, the confrontation. It had worked. Those who were martial artists could be declared duty ready within a month, who would have their field exam helping Galbadians hold the City or one of the other hot spots under repair. Those of other specialities could have it checked off their curriculum. Win-win.

Except the fact that the class currently surrounding him was too young.

"Sir?" Cile repeated.

“Yeah?” Seifer wiped his sweat with the back of his bandaged hand. He would never let them see what being faster than a bunch of teenagers cost him.

“You kept strafing around him.” Cile said, “Why?”

“Same reason why I keep forcing you to use your fists.” Seifer said, “Anyway, that’s it for today. I may have just mopped the floor with the lot of you, but I’m tired.”

He offered his hand to Attam, who took it and got to his feet.

“Someday,” he said to Seifer, “I’m going to beat you.”

“At the rate you’re going? Shame I won’t be around to see it.” Seifer grinned, “Hit the showers, kid.”

The cadets around him groaned, the kid especially. They shuffled off. Seifer sat down on the nearby bench and began unwrapping his fists. He felt the session roll off his shoulders and the familiar aches make themselves fully known. Bullet wounds, gashes, stitched up stab wounds... fractured eye socket. Old wounds sustained throughout a life of adversity in the global battlefield. He had to admit to himself that the kid had nearly wiped the floor with him, but he would never admit it to them.

_Fifteen..._

A gap and a feeling.

_...I don't remember what that felt like._

The aches traveling through his body revealed to him that the damage accrued over years was getting to him; but then again, he was forty-three and could still hold his own against a volatile, instinct-driven fifteen year-old martial artist. He couldn’t help but smile as he finished unwrapping his right hand and switched to his left – yes, he might’ve been a geezer in comparison, but he could still fuck them up.

He finished his left hand and stared at the lights above, at the gridded, adamantine support beams holding the high ceiling up.

_But still. He almost had me._

He knew it was all going downhill; slowly, sure, but surely. He was getting tired quicker these days. He was getting slower. He knew that he was still lightning-fast compared to the young cadets, but he knew that he was not at his peak anymore, though he was still not that far off from it. Just not quite there.

_Little punk might get lucky one of these days, _Seifer thought.

But no matter what else, it felt good to finally train without urgency, without the pressing need to chisel someone as quickly as possible into a shape fit to go man the trenches.

* * *

_SeeD brings death._

Once she got to the apartment she was looking for, Lea found the living room window to be slightly open. Her fingers went under it and she lifted the window up, careful not to make too much noise. Also luckily or her, the window was adjacent to a red sofa, and as such, could make her entry easier. She stuck her legs in first. The rest of her body followed. She looked around. The apartment was neat and organized and save for a half-drunk mug of tea sitting on the coffee table that marked the center of the living area, beyond which was the adjoining kitchen, the house felt warm and orderly. Paintings on the walls, small knick-knacks and the little details that made a house a home were all there and it all sung harmony and inner peace to Lea.

Maybe, she thought, this was because the woman who lived here had spent her life embroiled in wars and keeping the company of soldiers - she would need a place to get away from it all. To disconnect, to detach from the reality of wars being waged and battles being fought.

Lea wondered if she should call out. She decided against it. The house felt empty, but she hadn’t the heart to go room-to-room in search of the witch-kin. Given that this was her house, she would either be in or at work, both of which told Lea that all she had to do now was to wait... and to let her thoughts run wild in desperate attempt to silence the voices.

_SeeD is your killer._

* * *

The whole scene played out in slow motion for both the actor and the observer. As the Duchess slowly pulled out the music box she had been keeping in the drawer, the one with the self-winding mechanism trigger that sounded just like a gun hammer. Artemisia steeled her grip and fired. The gunshot boomed in the room and as the revolver chamber turned, the first bullet caught the Duchess right between the lungs, causing her body to spasm, shoulders thrown forward, neck snapping back. The second and third shots entered her lungs, one for each and the fourth one pierced her heart. As it beat its ast in her chest, Artemisia pulled again, drilling more holes into her chest and kept pulling until the telltale click told her that the gun was empty.

The Duchess felt forward, the weight of her head pulling her upper body down and her forehead collided with the table. Artemisia heard the sound of something dropping. Something much smaller than a gun, something that began emitting the metallic, dulcet tones of a Dollet lullaby. The small, almost inaudible clicking of the gears in the music box filled the room with an eerie silence.

Artemisia looked at the gun in her hand. It was empty now, just a coffin of spent shells. All eight shots had landed, and they had wrenched the life out of the Duchess; and with her, the independence of Dollet. An Empire that had survived the Lunar Cry, a dynasty dating back ages, the last survivor of a family ancient and full of history... all dead by her hand. By her goddamn hand.

How was that for an act of war?

She holstered her gun. She didn’t want to drop it. Her comm-link buzzed.

_“Sitrep!?”_

Artemisia pondered the question. What was her situation?

The gun in her hand had just made her first corpse. The first one she had killed and only to make sure that, in her words, the world was united to kill her. Just to unite the world she was there to protect, the world she would one day plunge into total war.

_No. No. I am not a witch. I will not do that!_

She heard a dripping sound and saw that the blood pooling on the table was dripping off the edge and onto the stone floor, pooling slowly but surely, running red through the cracks between the tiles.

A little voice in her head said: _oh, but you are._

Artemisia clicked on her comm-link. “The Duchess is dead. The Dollet Duchess is dead.”

_“Holy fu- are you alright?”_

“Yes, I’m... I’m fine.”

A little voice in her head said: _are you, now?_

Artemisia saw that the Duchess’ face was frozen on a gleeful, almost euphoric smile. She felt a pang and something clicked in her head.

_She knew._

The thought erupted, recalling her words.

_Ellone Loire knew. She knew all of this. So did the Duchess, because it’s all written. It’s all in the diaries._

Artemisia felt that she wasn’t alone. She glanced at the door, where she felt the familiar, ghostly presence of Ellone Loire.

“You knew... didn’t you?” she asked her.

* * *

_Ellone could only watch as Artemisia, furious, made her way over to her and before she could react, grabbed the collar of her turtleneck with her free hand._

_“What the fuck are you doing?” Artemisia shouted at her, “Huh? What? Why are you watching me? Does this give you pleasure? Is this what you get off to way back when?”_

_“I didn’t...” Ellone protested, both hands locking around her wrist, “I just closed my eyes for a minute, this isn’t... I didn’t follow you here, you pulled me...”_

_“Liar! I know you’ve been following me around! Did you think I didn’t notice?”_

_“I can’t exactly control where I go! I could, once, but not anymore!” Ellone responded, “Why else would I want to be in your scene of murder?”_

_Artemisia’s anger flared. With one, swift move, she pushed Ellone back._

_“You wrote about this.” Artemisia said, “This day. Today. The Duchess was expecting me. She had read your diary and she knew I would come and kill her. But this isn’t the past. To you, this is the future.”_

_“I thought you weren’t supposed to talk about-“_

_“Fuck all that!” Artemisia spat, “A woman slit her own brother’s throat and then committed suicide by SeeD! I don’t give a fuck about protocol, I just want to know what you know –what you wrote- that drove her to it. The Duke has two volumes with your name on them, and I bet you wrote about this in the second one - the one he was reading when she-”_

_“I don’t keep notes of my connections.” Ellone said hastily, “I don’t keep a diary. It’s all sensitive information where I am. There are rules against that, I am forbidden from-“_

_“Well, get real and start scribbling, Lieutenant General, because I need you to tell me what I’ll do next!”_

_Artemisia turned on her heels and stormed off. Ellone followed her down the hall and into the library, where she perused the shelves before locating her second diary. She plucked the volume from its spot and zipped her jumpsuit open. She placed the notebook in one of the inner pockets and zipped it back up. Ellone heard the familiar buzz of the comm-link. Artemisia clicked it._

_“Upstairs.” She clicked it again, “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a charade to perform. Now fuck off!”_

_Artemisia pushed her and Ellone, with her backs to the steps, grasped for something to hold onto, but ther was nothing. She let out a yelp and fell and then _she woke up, covered in cold sweat. She woke up out of breath, feeling absolutely sore in her legs. She laid there, staring at the ceiling, trying to calm herself. She breathed in through her nose and out through her mouth. In through the nose, out through the mouth. In through the nose... out through the mouth...

_A month trying to work up the courage to continue following her and this happens._

When her heart slowed down and the feverish rush receded, she forced herself up. She found her morning gown, put it on and dragged herself into the living room.

_I think I was better off following Adel... or Lea._

The latter was a bit of a sore spot. After having followed her to Timber and having lost her upon her entry into the city, Ellone had tried again and again, every single night, to find the runaway Sorceress. She wasn't entirely sure what was keeping her from seeing her; something with her powers or the nagging sensation that she should be focusing on Ultimecia instead? Ellone didn't know.

She shook the feeling off and stepped into her living room. The first thing she saw was the girl, sitting on one of her armchairs by the window, legs crossed. Light jeans, black boots, black sweater, tan veteran coat. Blonde hair, blue eyes, round cheeks and fingernails painted black.

Upon noticing her, the girl turned and Ellone recalled her face... the one from the dream, the dying Chicobo, the dead boy, the fire and the flames...

...the Sorceress.

Without a second thought, Ellone rushed back into her bedroom. She pulled the drawer of her bedside, pulled out the revolver and cocked the hammer back. She knew that it didn’t have a safety catch – Brea’s gift. Holding it like she as meant to, arm straigt, the free hand gripping her wrist, she returned to the living room, turning around so that the first time she and the girl looked eye-to-eye, the gun was pointed right at her chest

At that range, Ellone knew that even she couldn’t miss.

“Why are you here?” she asked.

The girl, unsure, slowly raised her hands up. When she spoke, she pulled a face, an expression of disbelief. Her voice was low and uneven, shaking.

“Please, Ms. Loire, I...”

Ellone tried to keep her hand from shaking. The gun as heavy and the prospect of shooting this girl was getting more and more difficult to process as she saw more than just a hint of despair in her eyes. Despair radiated off of her like sweat, like smoke.

Ellone felt that this was her last-ditch effort... the last turn before the bridge too far.

“I came here... for you...” she said, her voice low... it sounded sad, almost on the verge of total resignation. Ellone braced herself.

“Why?” She asked.

Lea took a deep breath.

“I need you to help me.”


	10. Counterrecoil

**(Day 34)**

* * *

With a labored, deep breath, Ellone stepped back, one hand still holding the gun, the other searching for something to hold onto. She found the threshold to her bedroom door.

"What kind of... help do you think I can give you?” she asked.

Lea's lower lip trembled, “You... can help me change it. Change the past.”

Ellone’s eyes welled up. She quickly swallowed it down. “You can’t change the past.” She said, “Not even with my power.”

“But you were there.” Lea said, “You know what happened. You saw it.”

“I hadn’t met you then.”

“_Exactly.”_ Lea snapped her fingers, “You can only connect with people you’ve seen. That’s on record. So where have you seen me before?”

“I go to Winhill all the time. I spend half the year there. I could’ve seen you at any time.”

Lea shook her head, “But it wasn’t that you saw me – I _knew_ you were there the entire time. You weren’t just connected, you were actually _there_.”

“You’re mistaking my consciousness with my body.” Ellone said, “I can’t help you.”

“But you have to!” Lea leapt to her feet, prompting Ellone to flinch, which made her stop, “There’s nobody else!” her voice was pleading, “It’s all my fault and I didn’t even want this! I can’t take it back! Please, I have to take it back, I need to take it all back!”

As Lea’s eyes welled up with tears, Ellone’s voice came out as a dangerous snarl.

“I don’t care.” She said, “I’ve spent my entire life being tossed around by Sorceresses. What makes you think I would help you, even if I could?”

“Because he was my brother,” Lea sobbed, “and I didn’t mean to... I didn’t! I really didn’t!”

Lea sobbed and then, burying her face into her hands, started to cry.

Ellone, careful to keep her gun trained on the weeping girl, groped around on the kitchen counter that separated it from the living room. Her fingers touched the curved form of the comm-link. She picked it up and clumsily inserted it into her ear. She knew that it was already pre-programmed to the emergency frequency, DefCon 1.

Ellone’s finger hesitated on the button. She considered the line. There the Sorceress was, begging for her help, wanting just to undo her original sin.

_But you can’t. You can’t change the past._

She clicked on the button. It bleeped once. Twice. Three times. Four times. Five and-

_“Elle?”_ Seifer’s voice.

“She’s here!” Ellone said, almost shouting, “The Sorceress is here, in my house!”

_“Say what!?”_

Lea’s eyes darted up, bloodshot and suddenly incredibly alarmed.

“The new Sorceress is right in front of me!" Ellone said, "She's in my living room!”

“Please...” Lea said, “Don’t do this...”

“Did you hear me, Seifer?” Ellone asked, "Get over here!"

_“Do you still have that gun?”_

“Ellone, please...” Lea's voice was quivering, "Please... don't do this..."

“In my hand!” Ellone said. Lea's eyes grew wide.

_“Then the fuck are you calling me for? Pull the trigger, now! I’ll get Timber Guard on it while you put two in her!”_

Ellone pulled the trigger.

The gunshot boomed something terrible and Lea jerked downwards, screaming. The kickback sprained Ellone's wrist and the bullet missed Lea by inches, shattering the window behind the girl. Ellone cursed. She took aim, more carefully this time... but also slower. Slow enough for Lea to let out a guttural growl and charge her, palm open and smash it against her nose. Ellone heard cartilege break and the world spun as blood came spurting out of her nose. She stumbled back and felt the door frame between her shoulder blades.

"Why!?" Lea screamed. She moved towards Ellone. Ellone reached and grabbed something soft and long – her hair. She yanked Lea's head back, trying to bring the gun to bear. Lea raised an arm to block it. Ellone fired. Lea screamed as her eardrum burst. Ellone fired again. The third bullet rushed through Lea’s hair and exiting harmlessly out the broken window. “I came to you for help!” Lea screamed, one hand creeping up from between Ellone’s breasts, fingers curled like a claw, reaching for her throat, “I just wanted to make it right! I wanted-“

“_No!_” Ellone blinked rapidly, trying to get the tears out of her eyes. Her head was spinning, “I’ve spent my entire life being pushed around by Sorceresses who just needed me to do something for them! They took my family from me, one by one, and you’re asking for my help now? To do what? To bring the boy back? No! We all face consequences! You’re the one who killed him, do you understand that!? _You killed him._”

Lea’s hand gripped her throat. “Why are you so cruel!?” Lea snarled, her voice on the verge of cracking up, “Why is that so hard to give now that I’m a Sorceress? I didn’t ask to be Rhea’s Heir! Hyne’s Descendant!? I didn’t ask for any of this, any of it!”

Ellone couldn't breathe. The hand around her neck was like a claw, a vise squeezing tight, making her gasp. She redoubled her effots to bring the gun barrel closer to Lea’s head. She pulled the trigger. Lea screamed again but the bullet missed her and embedded itself harmlessly into the wall.

Two shots left.

Ellone saw death in Lea's eyes.

“If you won’t help me, so help me Hyne...”

_I can’t, _Ellone thought as she put her hand on Lea’s wrist and tried to pry her loose, _even if I wanted to. You can’t change the past._

“What?” Lea hissed, “You got something to say?”

Black spots began to dance before Ellone’s eyes. Lea’s arm was strength itself, unbending and her hand was squeezing... squeezing...

The darkness was creeping up. She was feeling lighter and lighter, slipping away...

_...don’t you think I wanted my brother to grow up with a family? Don’t you think I wanted them all to grow up with their parents? I wanted the Sorceress War to have never happened, for Adel to never have strayed into darkness... I wanted to never be her chosen heir..._

Ellone’s last thought before passing out was clear, but it was quickly smothered by the darkness that embraced her.

_...I don’t even know why she chose me, in the end._

* * *

Artemisia stood to attention in front of Grand Master Sera Lowcraft. The Grand Master clasped her hands together on her console. Artemisia swallowed hard. She only did that when the matter was dead, dead serious.

“There’s no easy way to say this.” Lowcraft said, “So I’ll just say it. I just got a call from Internal Affairs.”

“Sir?”

“You are under investigation for the murder of the Dollet Duchess.”

Artemisia felt like she had just been punched in the gut. “Based on what, sir?”

“Kappa Squad’s operation report and subsequent scene analysis. The slugs dug out of the body match yours.”

Artemisia thought of the Gospels. _And you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free._

“Yes." she said, "I shot her. I thought she was reaching for a gun.”

“You also mention in your intelligence report that she was the one responsible for the Duke’s murder.”

Artemisia nodded. “Yes, sir.”

Lowcraft taped on the console, browsing through what Artemisia thought was the report, “And she told you that she wanted you to kill her?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And that she had legal reasons for it as well?”

Artemisia understood that she was being interrogated. She clenched her teeth and decided that still, the truth, ugly as it was, would have to triumph.

“Yes, sir.” She said.

“Well, the problem with that is, Artemisia, you are the only survivor of that encounter and in the absence of any recorded evidence the account is awfully convenient for you. Don’t get me wrong,” she held up her hands, “I believe you. But IA might not.”

“Will there be a court-martial, sir?” Artemisia asked.

“No. Not unless you do have the missing Ellone Loire diary.”

Artemisia shook, but didn’t show it. She swallowed it down, along with her pride to answer the accusation, knowing full well that the diary was in a crevice she had found in her bedroom wall... and that she had yet to touch it. Its mere presence had robbed her of sleep these past few days, and she had laid awake, the leather-bound volume in had, wondering if she should read it after all.

“No, sir.” Artemisia lied, “I didn’t take it.”

“Good. It’d be a violation of your contract and your oath as a SeeD. That amounts to high treason, as you know.”

“Yes, sir.”

A moment of silence.

“Where do you think it is?” Lowcraft asked.

“It was my impression, sir, that the diary was the basis for the Duchess’ actions. As such, I would not be surprised if she has hidden it... or destroyed it.”

“So you don’t know where it is?”

“No, sir.”

“Well. Alright. You’re relieved of active duty pending the investigation, so relax. IA will be in touch. Continue telling the truth and I am sure the matter will be resolved with ease.”

Artemisia swallowed hard. “Yes, sir.” She said.

“Dismissed.”

Artemisia saluted Lowcraft, turned on her heels and walked out of her office. She directed her steps towards the elevator. When she got there, she pressed her palm against the scanner. The scanner seemed to be taking longer than usual tonight. It bleeped, finally, and called the elevator. A small eternity passed while the elevator ascended to the administration level. The doors hissed open and Artemisia stepped inside. The elevator descended. She checked her watch. 6:52, internal. Early for some, late for her.

Once she was on the ground level, Artemisia headed directly for the dormitory. The Garden Faculty were gone. Between shifts, she assumed. The path that she had walked countless times since her induction seemed to have gotten longer somehow. Finally, unable to take it, she broke into a run. She rushed through the corridors with one goal in mind: to get to her bedroom.

She found her room and snuck in. She headed straight for her own part of the suite, with no regards to anything. She entered and closed the door behind her. She leaned aginst it, breathing heavy.

_My pride as a SeeD is a small price to pay for knowledge of the future..._

Artemisia mentally slapped herself and part of her wondered if this, or thoughts like this, would be what took her over the prophesized edge.

* * *

The guard kicked Ellone’s door open and rushed in through the opening to find her lying on the floor, eyes closed. He walked in and knelt down, fingers reaching for her neck to find a pulse. It was there. He sighed in relief. He reached for the comm-link embedded into her ear, buzzing out words he couldn’t quite hear. He picked it up and put it to his ear.

_“Lieutenant General Ellone Loire, come the fuck in, if you would fucking please! Fucking Hyne, come the fuck on!”_

“Who is this?” the guard asked.

_“...and who the fuck are you?”_ the other voice responded.

“Timoti Cran. I’m a local Timber guard. You?”

_“Grand Master Seifer Almasy of Ocean Garden, fuckhead.”_

“I am the first one on the scene to your distress call. I found Ellone Loire.” He said, “She’s alive, just unconscious. She should be coming to shortly. I won’t move her until she does.”

_“Any wounds?”_

Timoti scanned her body the best he could.

“Not that I can see.”

_“Oh thank fuck for that... alright, Tim...”_

“Timoti, please.”

_“Alright, Timoti Please, just stay on her. While you do that, alert whatever authorities are in there that the Sorceress is on the loose and she may be looking to get out of the city. Everybody should know what she looks like by now if you circulated the posters, so fucking get to it, yesterday, right?”_

“Sure thing.” Timoti said and clicked the only button of the comm-link, “Get right on that, _fuckhead_.”

* * *

Lea ducked into an alley. She was well away from the house, having run through the streets and taken random turns; often enough and random enough to get herself nice and lost. The upside was that she was certain that nobody knew who she was and where she had come just yet. The downside was that she was sure she was on the other side of town from the train station, which was where she needed to go.

She wiped sweat from her brow. Her t-shirt was stuck to her back, wet and cold. She glanced down the street. It was the morning rush, everyone was out and about, going places, going about their lives.

It dawned on Lea in that moment that nobody there, even those that looked her in the eyes, knew what had happened. The colorful, small buildings forming what had come to be known as Timber’s Old Town around her stood as they had always had, even through some of the harder times. The people, young and old, early and late, well-groomed and scruffy that went their way in the streets... they all had their paths to follow. Lea knew that she could almost see their pathways, like threads woven into the fabric of the morning rush hour, each one forming the dense cloth of life.

_SeeD is the end of the path. SeeD is the end._

None of them knew. None of them cared. The world kept spinning and the hour kept ticking, with the loss that was filling her to bursting, the lack of the irreplacable that tortured every fiber of her being even in that moment... the things that were driven into her so much like wounds meant nothing -nothing at all- to anyone.

Was this how they had all felt, Lea wondered. The Sorceresses that had walked this world before her, when they had understood fully and completely how utterly alone they were? Not just in their lives, but in their nature? Detached and separated, sectioned off from the rest of humanity, a connection that their Knights would have provided them, had they not been mortal themselves.

Lea felt that her Knight had been sacrficed to a single wrong utterance.

_SeeD will come. SeeD will find you. SeeD will kill._

She pressed her back against the wall.

_What now?_

Josh was gone. He was a third-page news blurb in a local newspaper. House fire. Claimed the lives of three. Her brother, mother and father. All dead for the knowledge of what she was.

_And what am I that even my own kin won’t help me?_

She thought of Ellone’s words. The same thing she had heard from her dozens of times in interviews, in that publicity stunt exposé of Quistis Trepe, in history books... _you can’t change the past_.

_Then what else is left for me?_

Lea peered down the street. There were two Timber guards at the far end, just standing there with their long rifles. There was a choice, right then and there, presented to her to answer her question. She could walk up to them and confess to everything. Give herself up.

_Or... there can be one thing... remember his words. Remember the memoir. The only thing I’m good for..._

_The only thing SeeD is good for is killing the Sorceress. Killing you, _the voices offered.

In that moment, the world came to a standstill. The thought enveloped all else and coated everything into itself, choking the world with its existence. Lea closed her eyes and swallowed. She hung her head. Yes, there was another option. There always had been. Ever since the Chicobo, ever since that night and in the time following it, hiding out in train stations, moving from city-state to city-state, following the news as SeeD choked Esthar with an iron fist, listening to the voices swirling around in her head, giving her counsel in dreams... there had been another way.

Perhaps, she conceded, the only way.

But how could that happen when she was in Timber and SeeD was in Esthar? She had to give them cause, at least.

With a resignation resonating with newfound determination, Lea raised her hood and went back out into the street, and turned her steps towards the train station.

_The only thing a Sorceress is good for, _she thought, _is making war._


	11. Advance by Bounds

**(Day 35)**

* * *

“What if she’s coming here?” Seifer asked.

Quistis raised an eyebrow. She checked the time. 7:43 PM, internal. Seifer, sitting on the other side of the desk console, was staring at her, expecting an answer. Quistis considered it.

“She can’t.” She said, “The only available transport, the train, departs from Dollet.”

"'cause they always have the best of security.” Seifer said, “Fucking state of the art and shit.”

“Say she managed to board a train there. Where does she emerge from?”

“Trabia.”

“I don’t see a Sorceress with only a month's worth of experience managing to slip by the outer border checkpoint. Say that she does,” she added upon Seifer opening his mouth, “then she’ll also have to get past Trabian border security. Jacen Onesson’s little outpost is being put to good use there, so there is no way she’ll get through that.”

“And if by some unforeseen fucking miracle she gets past that and comes fucking here?”

“Then we deal with her.” Quistis said, “What else do you want me to say?”

“I don’t know, a fucking plan that goes beyond that, maybe?” Seifer said, “Look, I remember how we fought and I remember how hard they go down, alright? I don’t wanna get caught with my fucking pants down.”

“The world is in lockdown.” Quistis said, “That’s all we’ve got right now.”

“That and your worker’s union.”

“Don’t remind me.” Quistis sighed, “Putting them to work and making sure they would was one thing, but I got their preliminary report and... shit, we’re looking at eight to ten months for fully operational, not six. I can’t tell that to the civilians.”

"At least you have the basic power up. And the shield."

"The shield's at 60%, Seifer. And we only have power enough for the most basic things. They keep expecting more progress from us by the day."

Seifer clacked his tongue. “Yeah, they’re already fucking restless. They had routines and job and whatever, now all they have is supply runs to their brand-fuckin’-new DMZ.”

“I can’t risk the workers telling them either. So... I was thinking...”

Seifer raised an eyebrow. He knew that tone of voice.

“Don’t tell me.” He said, “What did you think?”

“We’re going to be here for a while.” Quistis said, “The Garden doesn’t only offer personnel, we are also a floating, gigantic weapon. The pulse batteries are powerful enough that I think they could even handle a Lunar Cry.”

“So you want to..?”

“Settle down in Esthar. Maybe even rechristen this place. Esthar doesn’t have a Garden. Squall and I’ve talked about the possibility a couple of times, but that was just... you know, brainstorming.”

Seifer crossed his arms. “Going native, Quist? Really?”

“Why not?”

“Centra doesn’t have a Garden, neither does Balamb or FH. I don’t see you all torn up about those.”

“Centra is a barren wasteland only good for training cadets in monsters. Balamb doesn’t need a Garden, we already have the facility there. And FH has had only one cadet in our generation, and by that I mean yours and mine. And she died.”

Seifer considered it. Of all the places in all the world, of all the properties that he rented out there had never been one among them he could call home. Whenever he had to be stationed somewhere, he would stay in hotels just for the fuck of it. He had places all over the globe; and now that he had 1/3rd of Squall’s share, he had more.

But a home?

Home had been a stone house at the very edge of Centra; bonfires on the beach and the presence of unfortunate bastard children like himself. Home could have been Timber once, far away and in another life, with Rinoa in their little summer romance. 

No. The only home he had known, home as home, was the Garden.

“Fuck it.” Seifer grinned, “Why the fuck not? We’ve tried it every other way. Let’s go partisan, see what happens.”

“Just like that?” Quistis asked.

Seifer smiled. “Just like that. What, were you expecting a fight?”

“From Seifer F Almasy?”

“Seifer what now?”

Quistis chuckled. “That’s what they call you.”

Seifer considered it. “The fuck does the F stand for?” Seifer asked.

“It’s the word you love so much.”

Seifer’s confused face made her laugh. 

* * *

The interview room was a small, empty space with no windows. It only contained a steel table that was bolted to the ground and two steel chairs. The table also featured rings on all four sides that the chains of handcuffs would go through. In that moment, Artemisia wasn't in cuffs, but she knew how intensely focused IA could be. One thing you never wanted as a SeeD was to be where she was, especially with a piece of contraband stashed away inside her mattress. On-site evidence of her treason.

The door behind her opened and a SeeD walked in. He had short-cropped, auburn hair and green eyes. A crooked nose and high cheekbones. A martial artist, she guessed, from the way he set himself down and crossed his arms, his muscles evident even under the jumpsuit.

“Artemisia.” He said, “No-last-name-given.” Artemisia opened her mouth to respond, but the man cut him off, “No need. It’s on file. Orphan, origin and parentage unknown. Artemisia Doe. Which is funny, even Squall Leonhart used his mother’s maiden name, even if he didn’t know that it was that. He never switched to his father’s last name, even though they were married at the time of his birth.”

“You can’t change the name of a legend.” Artemisia said.

“Well said. I’m Paull Riveers, and I will be handling your interview today.”

Artemisia steeled herself. This would be rough. “All right.”

“Now.” Paull’s eyes narrowed, just a bit, just enough for her to see that they were in it now, “Walk me through what happened.”

Artemisia did. From the call at 3 AM to the mansion, the Duchess’ claims, the Duke’s death, her suicide-by-SeeD, or, by her reckoning, suicide-by-Sorceress. She took great care to not leave anything out, save for the one crucial detail that would cost her more than just the day. Paull Riveers listened, occasionally nodded or let out a contemplative ‘hm’ or ‘huh’ but stayed silent otherwise. When she finished, she waited. For a few moments, Paull Riveers just stared at her; or, as she felt it, stared her down. When he spoke, his voice was even.

“There is the matter of the missing diary.”

Artemisia took the hit. She knew that he would ask about it. CSI should have been all over the place, going through everything with a fine-tooth comb that made fine-tooth combs look like sieves and they would discover, of course, that the ink stains on the Duke’s fingers belonged to something that had mingled with his blood. Ink. Of course, given that he was no longer holding whatever had stained his fingers, they would look for it.

That the Ellone Diaries were marked “of 2” on the spine didn’t help.

“There is?” Artemisia asked.

Paull Riveers nodded. “There were two volumes in the library. Ellone Loire’s diaries, volumes one and two. Volume two is missing.”

“Would that be the volume where Ellone Loire talks about the Sorceress?”

Paull Riveers raised an eyebrow.

“The Duchess told me, like I said.” Artemisia said, “I know it’s forbidden to me.”

“It’d be a violation of Garden Law if you were to take it on purpose. There is leniency for accidental glimpses at it, as you well know, but otherwise... yes, it’d be tantamount to treason.”

“I know.”

“So you don’t know where the second volume is?”

Artemisia didn’t flinch. “I believe the Duchess had it. She seemed to be fixated on it.”

“The second volume specifically?”

“I assumed.”

“You assumed? Based on what?”

“The Duke’s hand.” Artemisia said, well aware that she was telling a bold-faced lie, “It looked like he was holding something when he was stabbed. Rigor mortis held the shape. A small book or a personal notebook could fit there.”

“What else?”

“The notebook was in his hand when I first entered the mansion. But it disappeared.” Artemisia said, “I was distracted by the Kappa Squad’s insistence that they should come in and when I returned to the scene, it was gone.”

“That’s not what you said just now. You made an observation about the shape held by the Duke’s fingers.”

Artemisia mentally punched herself. She cursed up a storm in her thoughts and, clear as day, began to sweat. She had fallen for it. A discrepancy like that bared to him that she was lying about something she had no business whatsoever lying about.

No. Not like this. This wouldn’t make her the Sorceress. An IA investigation could be rough, she knew, but it wasn’t worth throwing herself away. There had to be a way out. She had dug herself in, so maybe she could dig herself out.

“I indicated that to make sure _you_ understood what I meant by the fact that the Duke was holding it at the time of his death. Even after it was removed, the Duke’s hand remained in the same position, indicating, in turn, that it had not been recently taken. It had to be taken afer rigor had set in.”

Paull Riveers smiled. Artemisia barely held back a shudder. “I see. You have a background in CSI, correct?”

“Yes.” Artemisia said.

“Then is this your offical opinion?”

Artemisia bit her tongue. There it was, the springing trap. If she said yes, anything related that might crop up in the future would be compared to what she would say next. If she said no, then it would be apparent that she was lying. If she just tried to weasel her way out of it, it would be apparent that she was lying. This committed her to keeping up the lie, compelled her to stick to fiction.

“Yes.” She said.

“Very well.” Paull Riveers said, “That’ll be all for now.”

* * *

Being stashed between two piles of luggage was more comfortable than she thought it would be, but the one thing the luggage car didn't have was heating. Lea crossed her arms to retain body heat. It was getting colder the closer they got to Trabia. The rhythmic clacking of the train was background noise by now and she heard it as she would a lullaby. It was hard not to nod off after having eaten the last snack in her backpack. It would have to tide her over for the rest of the trip. It wasn’t that important, Lea felt; because after all, she had managed to catch the last train out of Fisherman’s Horizon. That, in and of itself, struck her as being nothing short of a miracle itself – two brushes with SeeD, and after having convinced them to pull back the extra forces the had piled on FH by staying out of sight.

Lea did wish she hadn’t had to kill one of them to get to the luggage compartment, but it was too late now.

_SeeD is the enemy. SeeD brings death. SeeD brings the end._

_At least I have company, _Lea thought, listening to the voices; _even though I've heard it all before._

Staring at the piles of luggage around her, wondering about the lives behind them, Lea couldn’t help but think two things. The first was that one of thse lives could have been hers, that she could have been in one of the passenger cars, sitting with her parents... no. Too painful a thought to venture near just yet.

But she could have been there nonetheless, instead of stowing away like the fugitive that she now was.

The second thought was that SeeD was not all that she had been told, had read, seen or heard. Of course, most of it had had to do with the Fated Children, the survivalists who had prevailed over everything that had been piled onto them... but without the tight grip of Squall Leonhart on their entire operation, it seemed, things had fallen down the wayside just a bit.

_Do not let go. SeeD will kill you. SeeD will end you._

Her decision to go down in an inevitable clash with them seemed a bit less unfair against her and a bit more unfair towards them with each passing evasion.

But still, SeeD was all she had left in the world. SeeD, and the crawling sensation on the back of her neck, the goosebumps on her skin when she thought about the moon rising at night.

It would be close to daybreak when she would reach Esthar City, she knew – that is, if she could get past Trabia.

Lea closed her eyes and tried to settle in. She had a ways to go before she was out of the woods, she knew.

* * *

_...the Duchess killed her brother because she believed that the SeeD before her would pluge the world that has known peace for a century, into total war. The inevitability of this was what drove her to what she did._

_I have come to understand that all Sorceresses have one desire, the same desire that is embedded into them when they become what they are, by choice or luck. That reason is the original sin._

_A Sorceress -any Sorceress- seeks to undo two things, both of them the same, but different for each. The original sin is Rhea’s eating of Hyne’s flesh - the act that brought the Sorceress into existence. But just like the Gospels’ claim, “and to each a gift,” there is something else they inherit. _

_And to each an original sin._

_This is the moment when a Sorceress either first uses the full extent of their power, or, the moment when a pivotal decision is made and its consequences become inescapable. This is improtant, because Adel’s original sin is the reason why she chose me as her heir: all those girls she abducted was just to find the one she could, or would, recognize._

_To elaborate: my journey into Adel’s past after my initial encounters with Ultimecia has shown that she had a twin. Her twin, however, was a boy. His body couldn’t handle the power contained within it. He was the one with the ability to junction himself to those he knew and since he only knew his sister on account of being bed-ridden for most of his life, he connected with her and “predicted” future events._

_That is also where the origin for my ability is._

_Sorceress Adel absorbed her twin brother into herself in order to save his life, but since Caleb, the boy, consented to this, knowing that it would kill him, it released his half-power into the aether and it chose me. Her original sin created me and the power of the witch-kin._

_Sorceress Edea consorted with the essence of Ultimecia and experimented with purer forms brought on by black magic, which led to the untimely death of Daniel, an orphan under her care. It was also one of the two events that scarred Squall for life._

_Sorceress Rinoa had the gift of casting illusions, which she used to cheat on Squall and later to capture him, but her original sin was deceit. Having decieved him, she drove herself away and so decieved herself into believing she was more than she could be. This one act of infidelity laid the groundwork of the Third Sorceress War._

_Sorceress Galloway did not have a choice, neither did Sorceress Brea, to use their gifts or to commit an original sin._

_Sorceress Lea’s original sin was the death of her brother, Josh, in a desperate attempt to stop him. Following this, she accidentally burned her family home down, and her parents with it._

_Like this, Sorceress Ultimecia’s original sin is, or rather seems to be, the murder of the Dollet Duchess. What marks this event as the beginning of her descent into darkness is actually strangely simple: she only did it because the Duchess ensured she would. Uncle Kiros used to call it a causal loop. This murder was made possible by this diary, which was made possible by the murder and what I learned following my own bloodline into the future. In a way, the conclusion seems inescapable._

_The future may in fact be unchangable, as unchangable as the past. There is one exception to this that I can think of, and it is_

Artemisia slammed the notebook shut. She gripped it in her hands until her knuckles turned white. The writing was on the wall and in the notebook - written in neat cursive, outlining her doom. Telling her the truth of the one thing she had suspected ever since the Duchess had told her that she would in the end become what everyone suspected she would.

But there had to be hope. Artemisia could not accept that everything she would do was set in stone. Even Ellone Loire had noted an exception to the tyrannical law that governed her forays into the past and her actions in the present: _one exception to this that I can think of, and it is_

Artemisia’s eyes widened. She read the sentence again and once more, just to be sure.

_and it is Time Compression._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The reason why I used a time skip rather than have Ellone go in again and again is that Adel's storyline took way, WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY too much space and distracted too heavily from the main plot.
> 
> Overall though, a weakness of "That Day of Infamy" is that the set-up to the conclusion is built up far more heavily in Artemisia's storyline (the B plot) than it is in the aftermath of Squall's death (the A plot.)
> 
> Still, this is my story and I am sticking with it.


	12. Pressure Mine

**(Day 36)**

* * *

The signs hanging from street lamps and monitors said **EMERGENCY** in bold, red letters against a white background. Lea didn’t know what that meant, as the people she had seen so far appeared to be going about their regular business; a sight she could judge well and from experience. But in that moment, Lea could care less about what the other people were doing and she hugged a street corner, away from watchful eyes, and took in the sight of it.

Esthar City was simply dazzling to her, a celebration of the continent’s enduring legacy in sleek, beautiful, hulking giants of the skyscrapers rising all around her. Neat, gentle curves bathed in the faint neon halos around the lights littering every corner, every window. Under the pouring rain, Lea walked, this time only hiding her face with the hood of her hoodie, because she couldn’t replicate being non-existent, and couldn’t shift the rain around her to mimic actual rainfall.

_Josh would’ve loved this._

With a sigh, she reached and lowered her hood. She willed the illusion gone. There was no point in being in Esthar if she wasn’t going to be seen. There was no point in going back to Winhill, in reliving those memories if they would not translate into what she wanted. She braced herself, took a deep breath and went back out onto the street. She stuck her hands into her coat’s side pockets and hunched, eyes darting every which way. She could feel her heart beating hard in her chest as she caught the eyes of strangers but for stray seconds and became convinced in that split-second of eye contact that they all knew who she was and why she was there. But then the moment passed and in that split-second gap between the previous and the next involuntary eye-contact, Lea was relieved. Her heart kept skipping beats as she met the eyes of strangers for the first time in more than a month with the knowledge that they could see her, hear her and knew she was there.

It was exhilerating, to be exposed and revealed at last; and although her purpose swam around in her head as she walked, trying to locate someone with authority, trying to announce her presence. That which she had tried to keep hidden was now screaming to get out, to be known and recognized.

_I killed you, _Lea thought, _because I didn’t want it known. I owe it to you, if nobody else._

Despite the state of emergency she had heard about on her second stowaway run from Trabia into the City, Lea was surprised to find no law uniforms on the streets. No police, no military, no SeeDs... she vaguely recalled a news report she had seen on the public TV in Timber, about Esthar keeping its own peace, but that was not-

The feeling came out of nowhere and slammed into her full-force, filling her up and rushing through her veins to enter her heart and from there, set her entire being on fire. The potency of it made her miss her step. Lea stepped down from the pavement onto the road at an intersection. She felt as if a single, thin thread had been tied to every nerve ending, splitting off into so many half-threads, and someone was pulling... pulling... pulling...

Lea raised her head ad glared at the bleak, gray skies.

There was music in the air, far and wee, music that she felt she must hear, louder. Better. Clearer.

The sound was pulling at her from above.

* * *

Down below, the catacombs laid silent; the eerie, quiet hum reverberating at the very foundations of the walls was the only discernible ambiance for Artemisia as she descended the steps, one by one, her path illuminatd by the LED flashlight in her hand. The steps that started out as marble gave way to stone and darkness swallowed the residual light. Artemisia couldn’t help but feel grounded in the rather claustrophobic, narrow, spiral steps leading into equally narrow hallways of the Hall of Martyrs. She knew that it was because she had Brothers junctioned. Just her luck: she avoided the purer GFs like the plague all her life, but now, having an Earth-based elemental Guardian Force helped her feel at ease.

It didn’t change the weight of what she was fixing to do.

It wasn’t just treason, or even high treason – what she intended to do was the equivalent of blasphemy in the eyes of anyone - herself included. She had no desire to further her transgressions, as she already had an interview with IA later on that day. She guessed that after that, she wouldn’t have much time left. The only way to make sure was to follow her instinct, which had been shaped after she had read Ellone Loire’s diary.

_Time Compression will allow for Ultimecia to shape the universe as she sees fit, as the only being capable of existing outside of time and yet as a part of it._

_As anyone knew it,_ Artemisia thought.

Nut was that the only way? Wouldn’t she be proving them right if she did this? Wouldn’t she follow the exact steps Ellone Loire had outlined for her?

Or, she supposed, would she be following those steps because she knew what they were and from where she was standing, the path made perfect sense?

The steps ended and Artemisia was greeted with a narrow hallway lit up by embedded lights mimicking the flicker, color and feel of torch lights. It was all in the name of getting one in the mood for worship, Artemisia knew; to prepare one for veneration. Of course, the main hall, the large, circular space reserved for ceremonies also housed what she was looking for. There were a set of blocks on the far end, blocks with the same brass name plaques reserved for every other SeeD, except these belonged to a chosen few.

The Fated Children.

Artemisia hesitated. If she crossed the threshold and emerged from the hallway, she knew that she would not be able to stop. Her decision will have been made.

She remembered the diary. She remembered Ellone’s assertion, as well as what she knew to be true: you couldn’t change the past. You could affect your present and so shape your future – which was why:

_That is how Time Compression is supposed to work. Condense everything into “now” and make the end result the new shape of things._

_Well... we’ll see._

Artemisia marched forward towards the row of name plaques and stood in front of the one she was looking for:

**QUISTIS TREPE**

* * *

“Keep her there! Don’t let her out of your sight! Signal all squads in Esthar to converge on your position, now!”

Quistis had forgotten her cane, Seifer noticed as he followed her run into the hangar bay, his gunblade in hand. Her breath was ragged from the sheer force of the adrenaline coursing through her. She was alert, ready, and if Seifer was judging it right, panicking. The hallway leading into the hangar bay went by in a daze and they almost raced one another to get to the door. The call had come a mere three minutes ago and then all they had done was to scramble.

Seifer had one hand on his comm-link as he ran. “Kappa, Nu and Xi – abandon post, get the fuck over to Mu’s pinged position, _fucking yesterday!”_

Quistis pressed her and against the palm scanner that would open up the double-layered blast doors that led into the hangar bay. She was slightly out of breath. The scanner bleeped and a loud, deep metallic clanging was heard. The doors began to slid open with a steady whirr, the mechanism keeping them locked disengaging along the way with the clacking of locks. Quistis took the time to steady herself.

"If I had known I was making a prophecy, I'd wish for something else."

Quistis could only glare at him.

“Not my choice, is what I’m saying.” Seifer smiled, “Hyne, this makes the past month almost worth it.”

“Does it?”

The hangar doors opened completely and announced this with a loud thud. Quistis and Seifer walked into the smell of monomers, gun metal and engine oil and the perpetual rush of air into the open space – the wooshing in their ears made them open their comm-links to their private channel. Dead ahead, in the center of the staging area was their hovercraft’s familiar shape.

_“What do you suppose she’s-“ _Quistis began, but the open channel bleeped, cutting her off. She picked it up and Seifer joined in, _“What? What is she doing?”_

Hesitant voice on the other end.

_“Sir, she’s... umm, I guess you could call it dancing.”_

* * *

Artemisia concentrated. She put a hand on the tomb of Quistis Trepe and pushed against it. Almost afraid she would be heard, she whispered:

_“Brothers.”_

She felt the power surge rush through her as the horned Guardian Force materialized on her left and her right. Artemisia didn’t take his hand off the stone. She could almost feel what was behind it: a golden chalice filled with her ashes, and a vial of her blood, perserved to perfection. But she did not want to defile the tomb, far from it, all she needed was for the stone to cease being so solid.

“_mistress calls.”_

_“WE ANSWER.”_

“This stone.” Artemisia said, “Shift it.”

_“SHIFT IT?”_

_“in what way?”_

“Make it into dust.”

_“WE OBEY.”_

_“we oblige.”_

Ani reached forward. Careful to keep her palm on the stone, Artemisia stepped to the side to let him. The beast put his hand on the stone next to hers. Artemisia could feel the stone beginning to vibrate from the inside. A split second and she said, nearly panicking:

“Don’t pulverize it! Just... sort of quietly crumble it, maybe?”

_“as the mistress wishes.”_

_“CAREFUL BRO.”_

_“not a problem.”_

As Artemisia watched, the stone began to crumble to dust from the top down. Artemisia heard the clank of the brass name plate falling down.

“Stop.” She said.

_“halfway done.”_

“It’s enough.”

Artemisia reached in and grasped for the chalice. Her fingertips brushed the ornate surface of it and traced the etched carvings. Old High Estharian, her name and last name. Quustus Trepiru. Artemisia slowly reached over the rim and dug into the ashes. She cringed. This was not okay. This was so not okay.

She finally felt the cold surface of the vial. She wrapped her fingers around it and pulled it out.

* * *

Lea heard hammers cocking back, their clacking loud in the hissing rain. She could feel it. This was it. At any moment now, they would shoot her down and there she’d be, at the end of her road.

So much for going out doing what she was supposed to do. So much for giving them a challenge. So much for going out in style.

Lea thought about what she wanted to do in her last moments. The only thought she had was that she wanted to dance.

So she began.

Lea’s right hand drew a graceful arc as it left her side and went up and stopped just above her head. From there, she began. She was aware that there was a blockade around her, all four sides cloed up and quickly filling with rushing SeeD squads, but she couldn’t care less in that moment. She didn’t know whether it was madness or finally snapping at the end of everything that had brought her there. The isolation, the loneliness, the guilt, the paranoia... it all seemed to melt away as she moved, not caring about anything, not even the movements themselves, but the feeling that they carried. As her body twisted, writhed and bent, her arms and legs moved in this strange ritual, she felt the music grow louder, inch closer. She took two strides and executed a somersault and landed smack in the middle of the intersection.

As the SeeDs and curious bystanders watched, Lea's movements grew more and more urgent, sharper. Taking wild, vibrant movement and wedding it to the subtler, more graceful sweeping motions, she danced, shaping worlds and empires in her wake, erecting monuments to the existence of herself, of her legacy. To a Crystal Pillar now resting in Lunatic Pandora, to a resonant piece of rock that now vibrated in her very soul, and with it, in the air around her, in the music that was growing louder... closer now, ever closer... closing in...

...the sound of rain and her steps splashing the shallow pools of water underfoot accompanied as percussion...

Lea threw her head back and laughed. This elation, this boundless euphoria filling her – it washed away the corpse of her brother, the charred remains of her home, the weeks spent escaping everything and brought her into the moment, into the now, an she danced to its rhythm, arms and legs and waist and torso and neck and feet moving in strange harmony, moving her from one end of the intersection to the other, crossing the distance and the music, oh... the music of the spheres, the celestial harmonies filled her mind, screaming at her to continue, to dance, to dance and dance and dance until the crescendo washed everything away... to dance until there was nothing left of her, nothing left of anyone... of anything... 

* * *

“What the fuck?” Seifer exclaimed as he moved to the front of the blockade. From his point of view, the Sorceress wasn’t much to look at. Small stature, regular clothes. He felt disappointment creep in and wondered when he had gotten so jaded on the matter.

She just looked like a regular teenager dancing under the rain, laughing with insane glee, moving as if she was following the memorized steps of an intricate routine.

“What is she doing?” Quistis asked.

“She’s been at it for the past five minutes, sir.” The Mu Squad Leader told Qistis, “She didn’t engage or say anything. She just sort of... let herself be seen.”

“This isn’t good.” Seifer said, “Why reveal herself right at our doorstep? And just to what, dance in the street?”

“Ellone did say she had probably hid around Timber for the better part of the past month.” Quistis said, “Maybe she finally snapped.”

“So who do I have to fuck for a sharpshooter to take her down?” Seifer asked, turning to the squad, “I mean, it’s not like she’ll respond or anything, so, don’t you you think it’d be... germane...” he trailed off. Quistis looked at what he was looking at, up above. What she saw was a blot of black, like a droplet of ink on parchment, spreading... growing wider, spreading across the clouds above.

A garbled noise made of a thousand cries, shrieks, roars and other sounds began to resonate in the distance. It was far still, but closing in and fast, expanding as the shadow did.

“What the hell is _that_..?” she asked. 

* * *

In the depths of her awareness, Lea felt it. A squirming, writhing mass of thoughts and memories all foreign to her. They were different lives, different people; and as she danced on, she felt them surface, one by one, and take over her moves for a fraction of a second each time.

A flash and she was Rhea, tasting the flesh of the Strong God, feeling the blood, still warm, dripping down her chin.

She was Rabia, fighting the Unknown King, who was cursing at her from across the battlefield, shaking his fist and screaming slurs of unimaginable magnitude.

She was Inga, sinking Vascaroon’s fleet into the ocean, feeling every ship pulled to the depths of the sea by unnamed creatures that swam in the darkness below.

She was Belea, pregnant and afraid, wandering the Centran Empire, with nobody but her unborn child to keep her company; and then she was wounded, a gash in her stomach, bleeding out her child’s life, and so in a desperate bid, she found her way down to a national treasure and kissed the Crystal Pillar. She buried the Centran Empire into the ruin and surrendered it to the monsters... save for one, tiny house of peple who had been kind to her in passing.

She was Panacea, the healer. She was Panacea, the plague upon the land.

Lea then split apart as more memories bubbled to the surface. She became Regina and Renata, twin banes who, out of the Dollet Empire rose to wreak havoc against the rule that had killed their parents for nothing (nothing at all.) She was Regina, shielding her sister with her body, committing suicide but failing at the last second and missing one crucial shot. She was Renata, crawling towards the stone house at the edge of Centra.

She was then Adel and Caleb, the only sorcerer to ever die, and the twin sister who absorbed him into herself to save him, killing him. 

She was Edea, taking Renata’s powers unto herself.

She was then Rinoa, waging a war she thought she could win, murdering many and crippling more. Casting illusions just to hide her shame.

She was Rhea, on her knees in the snow, looking down the barrel of Brea’s gun, wondering why she was so unlucky.

She was Elise. Untouched, brittle, insignificant Elise who had never even explored her gift.

She was Brea. Smouldering. Empty inside; empty but for the duty she had come to fill her life with... _I did my duty, gave everything I had and it’s not enough... it’s just not enough..._

...and then, she was herself. With the good and the bad, with the things she had done and felt and known and cherished and with the monsters that had kept her company along the way.


	13. Attack Heading

**(Day 36)**

* * *

The monster horde let out an unholy shriek ululating through the open space as they fell, tentacles, claws, talons and wings flailing, hungry maws ready to devour as soon as they hit the ground. The mass scattered as the shield went down, growing wider and as soon as the first ones hit some of the skyscraper roofs, Quistis clicked on the open channel and screamed her first order of the day:

_“Weapons free!”_

The SeeDs assembled around them had the chance to move a few feet away from their squad mates before the tidal wave of monsters descending hit the ground and hit the ground running. The ground beneath their feet shook and the arconcrete cracked, holding the weight of the bestial horde, hooves and fangs and tentacles feeling for its surface. A dust cloud enveloped the battlefield and everyone lost sight of all but the nearest. Still, they brought their weapons to bear and lashed out as the first monsters began to move out of cover.

Seifer couldn’t believe it as he, standing face-to-face with the rather sickly-looking Sorceress, dead center of impact, stood unharmed and untouched. He looked up. If that was the first wave-

The first groan emerged from the settling dust as two sets of clawed hooves stepped forward, their weight sending vibrations throughout the ground. Quistis recognized the six-voice call for allies, the opening cry of a Hexadragon. She cursed under her breath. The telltale slurring sound of a Marlboro echoed in the open space, earning the response of some others. Six, Quistis counted.

Seifer concentrated. He felt the fires burning deep inside him and opened his mouth to speak the name:

“If-“

Lea’s hand shot forward by instinct and she screamed: _“Tranquility!”_

Seifer choked. He felt something inside him twist up, as if someone had just reached into his soul, found a spectral sinew that junctioned the Guardian Force to him and held it in a death-grip. The moment passed and the thread binding him to Ifrit snapped, the physical pain registering as an afterthought.

The Sorceress’ scream pulled the trigger and with a cacophonic roar, the monsters charged forward to the nearest prey that they could see. The tense anticipation of the first impact instantly turned into a full-blown pandemonium. Marlboros came slithering out of the dust, flanked by Elnoyles with their beating wings and poison breath; Grendels came galloping out, packs looking for blood while the four heads of Chimeras shrieked dissonantly, making their presence known. Hexadragons came lumbering forth, behemoths on six legs and somewhere, Seifer knew as he swung and decapitated his first monster –a stray Grendel dumb enough to charge straight for him- there was a Sorceress.

When claw, fang and blood came to bear, so did the weapons and the SeeDs scattered into fragmented squads, picking their targets and obeying the one order that made sense in the confusion – weapons free. Firearms, swords, fists and para-magic rose against the primal violence of the monsters coming on. Quistis broke into a run towards the nearest Hexadragon, swinging her whip wide, preparing for a spiraling blow. The monster spotted her instantly as she made a beeline for it, and it turned to face her. The moment it did, Quistis side-stepped and leapt forward.

_“Float!”_

As if thrown from a slingshot, she hurtled through the air towards the monster. and brought her whip to bear. The chain wrapped around the Hexadragon’s exposed neck twice before the scythe sliced into its flesh.

_“Dispel!”_

The momentum carried Quistis on and the chain pulled her around the creature, the motion driving the scythe blade deeper into the creature’s throat and opening a gash that poured out a deluge of dark blue blood. Quistis held on tight as she came around and finally came to a halt around the wound. She used the toe of her boot to pull the scythe free and her eardrums strained under the weight of the monster’s death wail. It wobbled, legs trying to keep it standing as it bled out before collapsing onto its side, flailing.

Quistis retrieved her whip. She used her elevated position to survey the scene.

It was chaos. She spotted Seifer instantly, a whirlwind with his gunblade. Other than him, it was scattered squads, monsters striking out, feral, a mess of raw muscle and unfocused menace, tearing them to shreds. Blood flowed in spurts, raining down on the cracked soil.

She caught a glimpse of the Sorceress running, the monsters jumping out of her way and Seifer, his once-white, now blood red jacket easily seen through the sea of browns and greens, in pursuit. She clicked her comm-link and switched to the Garden channel.

“Where the fuck are you?” she extended an arm and took a deep breath. A pack of Grendels rushing towards a nearby squad of three were mowed down by the hail of bullets brought by her Gatling Gun.

_“Four minutes out, sir!”_

“Two! You have two!”

_“Yes, sir! Burn out the aux, let’s go, people!”_

* * *

The monsters spread out unto the streets and ran alongside fleeing civilians, viewing them only as flesh, only as prey. As they ran, they bean to zig-zag through the crowd, cutting swaths across their stampede, snatching strays and dragging them off, kicking and screaming. The crowd ran without direction, with only one overwhelming concern: to get away. Escape. Get out and get to wherever, for anywhere was better than here, anywhere was safer.

Marlboros emerged from clouds of pure poison; Ruby Dragons soared above; Grendels and Chimeras shrieked and roared; the beating wings of Elnoyles now behind the lines and their stingers darted every which way and SeeDs and cadets and Galbadian recruits responded with blade and gun barrel, para-magic and fists, and when it came to it, tooth and nail. But there were just too many, enough in numbers to swarm and overwhelm even the densest lines set up and the terrible force of the Lunar Cry rushed like a plague, coursing through the blood veins of Esthar City. It spread street by street, building by building as the monsters found their way through glass doors and high windows, salivating with anticipation as they went.

Quistis was lost in the fray. She couldn’t see anything or anyone, she kept shouting commands into the open channel that she knew were going unheeded and she felt no other course of action would suffice but to move, to kill, to unleash as much hell as she could on the monsters surrounding her, and to keep moving – to stand still, even for a Limit Break, was death. They would swarm her in an instant.

She kept going from body to body, using them to get to higher ground and get a quick glimpse of what was going on before ducking low and getting into it again.

It was a slaughter. Nothing more, nothing less – a total slaughter. 

* * *

Seifer dodged monster after monster trying to keep up with the little Sorceress. For such a skinny little girl, she sure could run. The monsters around them, eager tongues and razor-sharp claws, were leaping out of her way, he noticed; and if he were to lag behind, he ran the risk of getting caught out in the open, surrounded and with no backup.

In other words, the high point of his day.

But being monster-chow wasn’t on his list of things to do, and as such, Seifer ran. In his ear, Quistis was shouting orders, trying to get the squads around her to maneuver, to coordinate their positions, but he knew from the frequency of her orders that nobody was listening. 

* * *

Quistis swung the chain in a wide arc and the scythe tore right into a Ruby Dragon’s chest. She wrapped it around her arm, pushed with her elbow and executed a back-flip, draggig it up and through the monster’s gullet, earning a guttural, drowning scream from it as its wings and claws flailed around. Its blood, scalding hot, rained down on the ground and the mighty beast collapsed. Quistis stepped on its neck and climbed onto the body, already turning into a fleshy mess under her boots as its blood seeped out of the open wound.

The SeeDs had scattered. It was almost impossible to see anyone or hear anything besides the garbled screaming in her comm-link from various squads. The streets were lined with the flesh of beasts,

She concentrated. When she spoke, the words came clearly.

“_Siren. Shiva. Cactuar. Pandemona.”_

The air around her rippled. An Elnoyle, its wings beating hard, made a beeline for her. As it rushed forward, it began to freeze, from the wing-tips and its poison sting inwards, slowly becoming a cube of ice. It fell and shattered at the feet of the Ruby Dragon’s corpse as Shiva emerged, the moisture in the air freezing into a thousand tiny icicles. Pandemona’s winds swirled in the air, whipping Quistis’ hair and clothes. Siren emerged from the ground with a whirlpool of water holding her small island afloat, dispersing the monsters nearby. Cactuar emerged out of nothing and primed its needles and Quistis heard the faint rustling noise as they protruded out of the green.

In unison, they said:

** _“Mistress.”_ **

“Destroy.” she said. 

* * *

“Holy Hyne...”

Rann Jonnz had been the navigation officer ever since Nida had abandoned the post. He had seen many things at the helm. He had been there when the Deling Orphans had swarmed the bridge and had wrenched command from him. He had watched Selphie Tilmitt as she had gone up against the pulse batteries that had taken down Galbadia Garden.

But nothing could prepare him for the sight he beheld now.

The streets of Esthar City were alive with a vibrating, pulsating mass of flash, muscle, talon and fang. Those trying to hold the tide back were quickly overrun. Para-magic was scattering into the air, and amidst the chaos, four majestic Guardian Force were standing to attention, working their primordial power into the mass of monsters around them.

“Charge!” Rann commanded.

The pulse batteries of Ocean Garden whirred as they charged up. The order, weapons free, had come through long ago. Those manning the batteries felt their hearts skip a beat when they witnessed the scene. To them, it looked as if the streets were blood veins and the monsters were diseased cells, their onslaught covered every street, and at times, buildings in between.

“Take aim!” Rann said.

The comm-line of Pulse Battery 1 lit up.

_“At what, sir?”_

Rann considered it for a moment.

“Everything.” He said.

* * *

Quistis felt the air growing dry and heard the distant, yet audible whirring of pulse batteries, the telltale sound. She quickly split the head of the Grendel in her path into two, retrieved her chain and began to run. She clicked her comm-link mid-stride as behind her the Guardian Force began to cut down the monsters.

“Ping me!” she shouted into the open channel, “Fucking ping me!”

_“Yes, sir.” _Rann said, _“Locked onto your comm signal. You are safe.”_

“Fire at will!”

_“Yes, sir!”_

* * *

The Ocean Garden batteries began firing. Brilliant, blue lights emerged as pulse cells overworked in discharging their energy and the Garden began cutting swaths across the monster hordes. The means were undiscriminating and Quistis, well aware of this, simply focused on running towards where she had seen Seifer run to, knowing that he had a very decent head start on her. The pulse beams cut down monster, enemy, ally and civilian alike, incinerating those below into ashes, digging down into the arconcrete and scarring the Esthar City infrastructure along the way. A skyscraper caught in the fire slid, groaning as it did and crumbled as it was toppled, a diagonal line separating the top from the bottom; and the top, a mass of arconcrete, plastiglass, adamantine and lives, came raining onto the street as brick and mortar.

The monsters howled as they were denied, shrieked as they were burned alive. The people they had yet to kill tried, even more desperately than they had thought was possible in their lives, to get away from the double jeopardy of pulse beams and monsters.

Something inside Quistis was repulsed by the idea, but she had no choice but to run, to leave it behind and leave them to their bodies, to their deaths – there was nothing she could do to stop it. All she could do was to stem the tide.

“Nav!”

_“Yes, sir?”_

“Seifer’s comm! Ping it and tell me where he is!”

Wasn’t that how her life had been? Stemming the tide? Quarter of a century gone, wasted in being the levee that always broke, the dam that never withstood the might of the river... trying to prevent and to pre-empt all for nothing, all just to end up left behind, lagging, unable to catch up to the constant crisis, the ongoing disaster...

_“He’s in the Residential District, sir.” _Rann’s voice came, _“Seagill Street advancing East through Broadwalk.”_

“Keep me updated!”

_“Yes, sir.”_

Unable to do anything else, Quistis ran... she ran after the fight.


	14. Nonbattle Injury

**(Day 36)**

* * *

Seifer kicked the wall and shot up in an arc that had his jacket scrape the edge of the roof, but the momentum that propelled him forwards proved stronger. He spotted the Sorceress below, her green parka moving curtly around her as she ran across the roof.

He tapped on his chest, bracing himself for the impact.

_“Dispel!”_

Like a puppet with its strings cut, Seifer fell, shooting down in a diagonal line and overtaking the Lea as he landed hard, rolled and blindly swung his weapon as he found his footing. He spun, keeping the momentum and brought his gunblade to bear, pulling it from its lowered position up, blade pointed at the Sorceress who leapt back, arms flailing, panicked. Seifer pushed in, gunblade ready, to use the only advantage he had ever had against any sorceress, proximity, and closed in on her, preparing to tear her across with one powerful strike.

The sound of metal clashing against metal reverberated sharp and deafening as the gunblade was stopped abruptly. Seifer, unprepared for the block, felt it go from the tip of the blade all the way to his shoulders and down his back.

Panting, her jet-black hair sticking to her face, Lea looked Seifer dead in the eye. Seifer saw in his peripheral vision, unwilling to look away, a sword forming in her hand. He risked a glance down and saw that the weapon was growing out of the concrete under their feet, as if being sieved through a gap.

“Heh.” Seifer clenched his teeth in a vicious grin, “That’s your power, huh? Drawing things from other things? You’re a fucking glorified junkyard alchemist.”

“No.” Lea panted. The sword now complete, she pushed Seifer’s gunblade away and drew a semi-circle in the air with her weapon before bringing it down. Seifer blocked and then, understood. Just to test the theory, he stepped forward, his left foot stomping towards Lea, who adjusted her position, half-turning and stepping back, but keeping her sword locked with his.

Seifer’s grin vanished. Lea sighed.

“You get it now, don’t you?” she said, “I don’t just draw materials.”

“You’re fucked either way." Seifer spat, "Just tell me one thing: how did you do that thing with Ifrit?”

“It’s a gift.”

“Oh, fuck you!”

Seifer pulled back and swung, meeting a masterful parry that had Lea’s blade sliding across his to return from the break – he turned, Lea followed, perfectly in sync, not letting up. The blades clashed, rapid strikes bringing the cutting edges together in a myriad of angles, each one a move taught and learned over years and years and years of combat, a lifetime of mastering the weapon.

Lea’s boot collided with Seifer’s chin and sent him reeling, an opening she used to close in. Seifer raised his gunblade to block, but not before Lea’s thrust found purchase and opened up a very shallow gash on his arm. Before she could pull back, Seifer stepped forward and grabbed her by the back of the neck and smashed his forehead against her nose. He heard cartilage break and blood came spurting out of her nostrils as she stumbled backwards, the opening Seifer used to throw a kick.

Barely, but surely, Lea parried it with her right foot, her sole stopping Seifer’s ankle and allowing her to carry the momentum on. She spun and executed a desperate swing that Seifer went under – but his gunblade was at his left and he couldn’t both dodge and swing, so he spun as well, came around, blade turning with him. Both swords collided once again.

“You drew my skill set from me. That’s fucking original.” Seifer snarled as Lea wiped her nose with the sleeve of her parka, “But I’ve seen it before, kid. I know how it’s done, and who did it first.”

“The gift of Sorceress Rinoa.” Lea said.

“Fucking lot of good it did her, in the end, didn’t it?”

“You didn’t get her for it though, did you?”

Seifer’s eyes narrowed to slits.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” he said.

“You weren’t even there. So, come on. I’m your second chance.”

“The fuck you know about it? You weren’t even _born_ when she died!”

Lea shook her head. “But she didn’t. She lives. In me. They all do.”

“Yeah, we’ll fucking see about that.” Seifer spat and he swung.

* * *

_He was there, and her contented sigh told him that she was elsewhere entirely._

_The grass on the knoll was fresh and the scent was pleasant, even if the day was ending and he still hadn’t gotten so much as a decent kiss. The downside of trying to date the General’s daughter was that she was afraid somebody wanting to score big with her father would kick his head in._

_Let them try. He had basic martial arts training. Sure, he hadn’t used anything since the foundation years, but he could hold his own._

_He would be a SeeD soon. There were many things in the horizon for him, waiting for him to become what he was always meant to be._

_He glanced at her, lying next to him, her eyes closed. She was beautiful, that had been the obvious draw. But more than that, he felt that he envied her innocence. She really thought that two buffoons and a train car left from her mom amounted to a serious resistance movement. She really thought throwing her pocket money at Balamb Garden would get her SeeD to do whatever it was she wanted to do._

_Oh, he knew that he wasn’t just a handsome rogue she had happened to be interested in. He wasn’t stupid enough to think that she would be into him for him. He had a function in this June-to-September romance of theirs and come his last day in Timber as the forest monster killer, he would probably never see her again._

_Not that it mattered, he told himself. They never stayed anywhere, after all._

_So he enjoyed the sight of her; enjoyed imagining all the things that he knew would never be, that weren’t meant for him. An entire life in the blink of an eye, in the time it took for her to open her eyes and catch him staring, a half-smile on his face, memories of lives never lived filing his head and carrying into the moment._

_“What’re you looking at?” she asked._

_“You.” he said. Then, he laughed. She averted her gaze, all ashamed, which made him laugh harder. It wasn’t at her, he wanted to say, it was at himself. What a line._

_If there ever was a story about him, he would want to come up with a better line than that._

* * *

Seifer came at her hard, a whirlwind of blade, punches, kicks and feints, not letting up for a second, turning her in circles in the same spot to keep her where she was. For herself, Lea countered; aware that his speed, brute force and technical superiority, despite what she had inherited from him just now, allowed him the advantage. She defended, trying out his own tricks against him and found that not only was he adept at recognizing them, he was also able to improvise, something she knew she couldn’t do.

Her inheritance had come with the one weakness that had, she knew, taken down Sorceress Rinoa in the end – the inability to overcome the enemy using his own weapon.

The strategy was sound: lull him into a sense of superiority by feigning equality; challenging him at his own game and then, turning the tables. But now, dodging a flurry of strikes, jabs and slashes, Lea knew that the problem was that she was limited to him when it came to the weapon.

Lea ducked under a wide angle slash, turned and her ankle collided with his. Seifer stumbled, torso leaning back, but leapt back and regained his footing, just in time to find Lea throwing a spinning kick that collided with his jaw, knocking a tooth loose. Seifer spun, bringing his weapon to bear to defend, but as soon as he felt his tooth on his tongue, Lea’s blade clashed against his, a blow he felt in his wrists, trying to lower his block. Seifer spat his tooth at her and countered: vertical, straight down, step forward, jab forward, other foot forward, twist the blade, horizontal, stop, switch blade position, diagonal upwards, other foot forward – the Dance, as he called. Step, strike, step, strike: never step forwards twice with the same foot, always advance, never stop.

He jabbed forward, and Lea’s blade came from above, forcing his down. She threw a kick that forced him to take a step back to avoid and that gave her enough distance to point towards him, palm outstretched, and scream:

_“Thundaga!”_

The chain lightning erupted, thunder booming in his ears and blowing out his eardrums and Seifer felt the electrical charge. The gunblade acted as a lightning rod and caught the charge, sending it right down to the insulated hilt. Seifer smelt burning polymer as the handle grew hotter, the heat slowly creeping into his gloves.

_Strike while the iron is hot._

Leaving a trail of smoke behind it, Seifer’s gunblade danced, once again pushing Lea back. She was sweating profusely, her every move even but her pace slowing. She saw that Seifer was getting tired as well. Although his stamina was incredible and his strikes had lost neither speed nor strength, his forehead was wet with sweat, he was breathing heavily and he was trying to force his way with brute force.

A thought flickered in her head and Lea realized that he was trying to overwhelm her before he started losing his strength.

“You can do it,” Lea urged, “Come on. Try harder.”

* * *

_He could do it. He knew that he could._

_“I guess this is goodbye.”_

_Seifer turned and saw her lower lip tremble. Oh, no. Not here, not now. It was better this way. They had had their time. It had been nice, memories for lonely nights in the secret area._

_Thanks for the memories, he wanted to say. I never thought that I could just exist, even in between the moments, as myself. Not the man I want to be, the man they expect me to be. Not what Fujin and Raijin are drawn to, not what pisses Quistis off the most, or gets under Zell’s skin. Not the knight I want to be, just me._

_He would’ve laughed, again, this time at the notion: the man behind the uniform. No longer a boy, no longer that child who wondered if he had a brother or a sister somewhere._

_No. He was Seifer Almasy. Future SeeD. Future Knight._

_Everything was waiting for him at the end of the line. Right now was a waste of time when everything was in his tomorrows._

_“Hey.” he said, slipping back into his skin, easing himself into the face of senior cadet the juniors begrudgingly admired, “Don’t worry. I’ll help you out. Cid is a softie, he’ll get you what you need.”_

_“You’re not just a cadet to me.” she said, her voice strained. Seifer could hear the announcement over the intercom, calling for some passenger who hadn’t made it yet. The rustle and bustle of station, the hasty goodbyes and assurances for future correspondences surrounding them seemed like a blur, and for a moment, Seifer suspected that only they were real._

_“I know.” Seifer said, “But I am also that.”_

_“I know.”_

_Say something, something inside of him commanded: say something good. Let her remember you like you want to be remembered._

_“How about this?” Seifer said with a smile, “I’ll be there.”_

_Rinoa looked up at him with her dark brown eyes wide and misty. _ _“In the Garden?”_

_“I’ll be waiting there.”_

_“For what?”_

_“For you. If you come, you’ll find me. The next time you see me, I’ll be a SeeD. I promise.”_

_Rinoa lingered and then flung her arms around his neck and pulled him in for a kiss, desperate, warm and laced with the salt of her tears. Seifer embraced her, letting it slide, letting the world sieve around him and let everything else step back. This was all it was ever going to be, he knew. He found that he didn’t want anything else, from her or from this moment, as she hastily withdrew, said her goodbyes and ran off into the crowd, disappearing in an instant._

_He smiled and sealed the memory. Then, he turned around and stepped onto the train._

* * *

Seifer forced his focus, putting his back into it, aware that he was past his peak point already. His muscles were aching and he was feeling every single one of his years, and the youth of his enemy, with every strike. He knew that he was grunting, panting and sweating his way through the duel, still dominating the clash but by a hair, slowly losing ground the longer it dragged out.

In his mind, an insistent memory was poking and prodding at his concentration: Squall after Matron’s death, telling him about how she had fought, with a sword and better than any swordsman Squall had met, himself included. He had told Seifer about how Matron had tried to tire him out, using the only advantage he had against him with her endless stamina.

Also breathing heavy but vibrant and alive, Lea let out a crystalline laugh and Seifer realized that he had been in a trap, that same trap, this entire time. The feint, the runaround, the duel... it was all just a ruse.

He became very aware of the fact that the trap had already closed.

He had swallowed it hook, line and sinker. Like a fucking amateur, like a cadet. Like an inexperienced boy messing around with the General’s daughter just for the hell of it.

“What’s the matter!?” Lea shouted, “You’re supposed to be better than this! Come on! I’m right here! Come on, kill me!”

_“Fuck... you!” _he shouted through clenched teeth, “_You fucking witch!”_

Seifer’s anger flared and he threw a kick, pulling his blade back to extend his reach.

That’s when he realized, in that split second before his foot found the ground and he readjusted his stance, that that had been the mistake. The only mistake that would matter.

Lea’s blade sliced into his stomach, cutting him open as she drew a perfect line in the air, dragging along his blood with him. He felt the cold metal enter and leave, but before he could turn, Lea spun, in a perfect imitation of a move he had used many times before and he saw it coming.

Lea’s sword plunged into his chest, sliding in between his ribs and tearing right into his lungs. She put her palm on the bottom of the hilt and leaned into it, pushing the blade’s tip out his back.

Seifer shook. Blood started to fill up his lung, Lea leaned in, breathing heavy, her every breath releasing vapor into the air.

“Why can’t you do it?” Lea whispered into his ear, her voice quivering.

Seifer tried to lift his gunblade but it seemed glued to the ground. His arms wouldn’t move. He was choking, gurgling. Blood came rushing out of his mouth and through clenched teeth, he looked daggers at her gleeful eyes.

He knew that the wound was fatal. He knew that she had him, dead to rights.

His grip released and his gunblade fell. Lea was twisting the blade, slowly, opening up his ribs, widening the wound. Blood came dripping down to the ground as he choked, left hand reaching for her throat... with only one hand he could... he still could...

...he wouldn’t be the failure in the end.

He wouldn’t be the disappointment, the old shame, best forgotten. He wouldn’t be the pariah, the traitor, the hated one, the once-villain. He wouldn’t be the penitent.

No, with only one hand he could still break her fucking neck, squeeze the life out of her. He could still win.

He could still be all he had ever wanted to be and kill her. One more inch and...

“Is this all you have?” Lea pleaded, “Is this all?”

Lea’s knee pressed against his stomach and she pulled the blade back as she completed twisting it. She pushed him off. Seifer stumbled over his own feet and fell, limbs flailing and hit the ground hard. He choked, his arms and legs twitching, trying to keep him alive. His hand scraped across the concrete, leaving a trail of red - a trail in which he saw his yesterdays extend all the way back to that moment on the grass, that line he wished he hadn’t used.

He felt Lea's fingers, feather-light, brush against his ear. She took his comm-link and pocketed it.

_Not like this... _he thought, his mind desperately trying to figure out a way for him to survive, _Hyne, not like this._

He heard the sound of something sharp entering meat with great force and heard Lea grunt. His eyes moved in their sockets to see her turn around, revealing the scythe of Quistis’ chain whip stuck in her back.

“You struck me in the back!” Lea snarled, one arm curling to let her grab the chain, “You coward! You’re supposed to be better than this!”

_“What have you done!?”_

Quistis.

Seifer turned away, looked at the rugged surface of the flat roof. The irregularities in the concrete, cracks and the smallest protrusions, like the barren terrain of Centra, full of monsters.

His mouth was full of blood. It was sweeter than he remembered, sweeter still that it was the last of it.

Seifer heard Lea pull the scythe out with a sickening crunch. She grunted as the footsteps drew closer, the chain of Quistis’ whip rattling and a thought flared in Seifer’s head, synapses firing at full force:

_Don’t let her see me like this._

Lea’s presence vanished, following her off the roof and back into the streets below. Seifer heard the chain whip clang and felt a familiar touch: slender fingers snaking around the back of his neck to hold his head up.

The blurred shape came into focus and Seifer saw Quistis’ eyes. What he saw in those electric blue orbs shook him to his core, even when he was sputtering and twitching and trying to speak through drowning in his own blood.

Even when dying, he saw that she was so... so...

“You were...” he forced the words through the blood filling his lungs, “...right... about me...” he coughed, spat blood as she cradled his head, whispering his name over and over again, her panicking voice stuck repeating it, “...you were... always... right... I... I...”

“No... no... Seifer! _Seifer, please!_”

_I’ve had a good run, _he thought as the darkness began closing in from the edges of his vision inwards, swallowing his entire existence in the pitch-black washing the world and so himself clean of him.

_So this is what it feels like._

The whole world dipped into the void and as the sounds and sensations grew more and more distant, as everything burned in the sight of the brilliant white light scorching his existence, he heard a scream, desperate, full of loss and more sorrow than could be contained in one voice, ringing... fading... in the distance...

_“Seifer!”_


	15. The Last Three Hours

**(Day 37)**

* * *

The sterile chill of the morgue, caressing the rounded, lifeless steel surfaces hummed in the background, far and wee, a cold wind blowing silently in her mind. She had both hands on the slab, a fraction of an inch away from his dead flesh (_his skin, it's his skin_) she remembered her first corpse. You never forgot that one, because when it all became too much, that would be the one who would come for you in your dreams, leading an army of the dead you had recruited in your wake.

_And when they come for me..._

In the background, her mind was working over the latest report. The last sweeps were being made by the Garden. Esthar City was halfway ruined, its commercial and business districts demolished. The remaining teams on the ground were sweeping for monsters, combing through the city, click by click.

None of it mattered anymore. For Quistis, the war had already been lost.

She couldn't take her eyes off him. He was precious and fragile.

She tried not to look at the stitched-up Y-incision. The cloth draped over his legs, covering his waist and so offering a modicum of modesty, seemed a little too cold. Slowly, with gentle hands, she unfolded it and covered him, up to his neck.

She found it in her to caress his hair then, just to feel the strands bending to her soft touch.

His blameless head. His blameless head and the lingering last words, a scream in the incessant whispering of other famous last words, the one that mattered the most to her.

_"You were right... about me."_

_About what? That you were worth it? That you were worth every bastard insult I took from Squall, every hour of dread, not knowing whether they'd lynch you or drumhead you for treason when I wasn't looking? For every night I spent looking into your eyes, seeing the same fucking agony behind them that we all carried, but then seeing you smiling for my sake, shaking it off with a creative cuss and a hand-wave?_

_That you could be _my_ Knight, in the end?_

Her fingers in short, blonde strands, a thought came to her.

_I will never know._

Quistis didn't feel her approach, but she felt her presence. She felt her gaze. She knew that Ellone couldn't take her eyes off the body _(not the body, him)_ either. She had come quickly, Quistis noted: it had only taken the time for the Garden Coroner to stitch him back up and write the preliminary report. Quistis didn’t know what she had been doing since the Sorceress. She didn’t care.

Nothing mattered anymore.

Under the dead white lights illuminating the reflective surfaces, they stood in silence, listening to the cold steel wind hum.

Quistis broke it. Her voice was low, cold.

"Take me back." she said.

Ellone tore her gaze from Seifer's scar and onto Quistis. Quistis wasn't looking at her. She was looking at what was left of him.

"What?" Ellone managed, her voice barely above a whisper.

"Take me back." Quistis repeated, "I need to see him. I need to feel him. But beyond all of this, I need to know _her_. If she has something she values. If she as some_one_ she'd hate to see choke on their own blood. Something -anything- that I can take from her. Anything I can hurt her with."

Ellone felt fear grip her throat. She swallowed hard, looking at the cold gaze of the woman she had come to know as her little sister, now turned to her. In those electric blues, Ellone saw war. She saw the blood of innocents spilled just to assuage her rage, just to account for her loss.

She wanted to look away, but the only other place to look scared her even more. She remembered the first time she had been in a morgue, the first time she had seen a body. His eyes were open, Ellone remembered, a beautiful shade of hazel, glazed over and lifeless.

_Just don’t look into his eyes, _Uncle Laguna had said.

"I can't." Ellone said, looking away.

"Then what the fuck good are you?" Quistis snarled. Her entire body snapped to and she looked Ellone dead in the eye, her stare full of ill will, "You don't fight. You don't kill. You don't have anything else to offer but this power of yours, so if you can't take me back to show me..." Quistis' voice rose so suddenly that Ellone jumped, "..._then what's the fucking **point** of you!?"_

Quistis' hand shot through and grabbed Ellone by the collar. Ellone felt her teeth rattling as Quistis shook her.

"Take me the fuck back!" Quistis repeated, “This is not a request - I am ordering you!”

"I won't." Ellone said.

"I am giving you a direct order." Quistis hissed through clenched teeth, "As the Grand Master of Ocean Garden. You will obey it. One way or another, you will obey."

Ellone looked into her eyes and saw murder. She sighed. She put one hand on Quistis' head and closed her eyes.

"I'm sorry." she said. Quistis began to ask, for what, when everything went black.

* * *

_The café was one of those hole-in-the-wall places that the burgeoning scene of Fisherman’s Horizon had in every corner. It had good, homemade beer and something other than fish, which was rare in their case, which was why he had chosen it. Also, it was cheap. The chairs and tables were old, worn-out wood held together by an excess of rusty nails and the entire place, at full capacity with just twelve people there, smelled of spices and cigarette smoke._

_Still, Seifer didn’t have any other place he’d rather be in that moment._

_He wondered what she saw when she looked at him when she thought he wouldn’t notice. His unshaven face, his unkempt hair, the overalls he was lucky enough to have made that would withstand a Guardian Force, the dirty t-shirt, the calluses in his hands. The slightly out-of-shape body beneath, the way the waitress had made a point of dragging a forefinger across his arm when she had taken their order._

_A failure, probably. A washed up cadet who could never quite cut it. A traitor. The man who sold the world to the sorceress in a bid to achieve a dream that now seemed so childish to him, so immature that it all seemed in vain. Vainglorious, even._

_Like that thought on that train platform, a second after that kiss... the same feeling when he had fed her to Adel inside the Luantic Pandora. That same absence of direction, that same pointlessness._

_Stale beer and bad veggie sandwiches as a consolation prize._

_What a shitshow._

_But still, she was there. White shirt, three buttons unbuttoned as if to make a point. Dark wash jeans. Sneakers, which surprised him to a degree that he would never admit. Hair down, slightly frizzed from all the moisture and her glasses on. If there ever was a moment where he would consider making a snide, flirty remark at her, it’d be now._

_The moment passed. He didn’t say anything._

_The truth was different. He didn’t actually know what to say._

_Sorry that I almost killed you all? Sorry I sided with the Sorceress? Sorceress**es**, even? Sorry that I never made it? Sorry that I was never one of you? Sorry that-_

_“I’m sorry.” Quistis said and tied Seifer’s tongue. The sip of beer in his mouth froze where it was. He swallowed after a few moments._

_“You’re sorry?” he could manage, “Hyne and Vascaroon – you’re sorry? Wow - really, Quist? That’s your opening line? Fuck me...”_

_“What do you want from me?” Quistis snapped, “I failed you, alright? I was a shit Instructor and a shit friend and I am to blame for this. For all of this.”_

_“All of what? Where I ended up?”_

_Her eyes found his._

_“Yes.” she said._

_“No you’re not.” Seifer said, “I made my own choices. You even followed me into one, remember? The first live broadcast in a decade or more and what happens? Some fucking asshole walks in with a damn fine SeeD and take the Galbadian president hostage, just to get some other fucking asshole to get to where they are, who may or may not be paying attention what with his idle brooding and all.”_

_Quistis burst out laughing, trying to hold back, but unable to help herself. Seifer grinned._

_It was a beautiful sight, seeing her with her hair down._

_“Oh Hyne...” she said, wiping away a single tear from her eye, “Yeah.” she chuckled, “Yeah we...”_

_Seifer saw it. Her joy died, faded from her face and with it, the thing that she kept inside her, that thing called guilt that he knew so well resurfaced._

_“That was when you joined Matron as her Knight." Quistis said._

_Seifer took a bite out of his sandwich. Fucking rye bread._

_"And what a romace that was." he said, "She taunts me and I go and show her, I really fucking do. Shoot myself in the head. But hey, it all turned out okay."_

_"You're awfully cheerful about all this."_

_"What, you want me to mope about it? That's Squall's job, and I am not doing it for him. Not for free, at any rate."_

_Quistis laughed and wondered briefly how long it had been since she had. None of that fake, diplomatic laughter she had used in every official occasion since the war, but the real one._

_"Y'know," she said, biting into her sandwich, "My first assessment of you was that I knew you were trouble. I didn't remember why, but I just knew it."_

_"Fucking GFs." Seifer said. Quistis nodded._

_"But after everything, I mean... how did you end up here? Here, in FH?" she asked._

_Ah, the million Gil question, at long last._

_"Couldn't stick around Balamb." Seifer said, "Too many familiar faces. Saw Zell shitfaced once, talking about the Missile Base and that was it. Fujin and Raijin were... well, they weren't exactly thrilled, after what went down to... you know, stick with me. But they helped me out, got me enough to get me here."0_

_"What happened to them?"_

_"Fucked if I know. Fujin was thinking Timber, Raijin was thinking who the fuck knows what, ya know?" Quistis chuckled, "But I heard there was some dock work for the inexperienced workers here in FH, so I came. Physical labour."_

_"It shows. You're in good shape."_

_"...I haven't touched my gunblade since."_

_Quistis stopped chewing._

_"I haven't pawned it. Hell, it's the only thing I haven't pawned for Gil. Can’t part with the fucker to save my life. It's in my room in the hostel. But I haven't... fucking Hyne, I can barely stomach that it's even there."_

_Quistis looked at him. He was different, but familiar. The smudge of grease on his cheek, the unapologetic way he made his way through the sandwich and beer, his brief banter with the waitress that had brought them the food (a redhead with skeletal fingers that Seifer kept calling "darling" for some reason...) and the clothes. The old, gray t-shirt discolored with engine grease, the heavy-duty jeans and work boots..._

_...but moreso, his eyes. The eyes that used to carry that malintent, that vicious fire. They were softer now, brighter somehow... and kinder. Gentler. Quistis hid her gaze behind her beer mug and her slight flush in other thoughts._

_"Maybe it's fate." Seifer said with a sigh, "Maybe I just wasn't meant to be SeeD."_

_Quistis hesitated. She could have something to say about that, but wasn't sure that he would go for it. Or that she should go for it. From where she was sitting, he looked rather content where he was, in a quiet town, away from everything and doing grunt work as some sort of self-styled penance. Away from Timber street brawls and Caraway's constant poking and prodding of the Dollet Duke. Away from the shindig, the broken parts of her life that she was trying to heal after their victory._

_"Would you?" she blurted out, before another second thought could arrest her tongue._

_"Would I what?"_

_"Try again."_

_It was Seifer's turn to laugh. Quistis shrunk._

_"Would I?" Seifer grinned. He looked away from her and into the horizon. She could see the gears turning in his head. "Know what, Quist? Call me mad, but I actually fucking would."_

_"Really?"_

_"Look, I've got it good here, not gonna lie. It's nice and calm and I'm like one of those nature-minded flower-fuckers who find harmony and all that. And they’ve been good to me, despite what I did. But there is one thing, you know..." his eyes found hers, full of mischief, only innocent this time, almost child-like and wistful, "...one regret."_

_All the battles in the world couldn't tear her away from him in that moment._

_"That I never made it. Not with SeeD and... well, not with you."_

_"Me?"_

_"I never thought you'd give me the time of day, not with Mr. Lone Wolf around. You tried real hard not to play favourites, I know, but... you did. Not your fault, I know."_

Stop.

_"If you want." _ Ellone said, her voice echoing in the memory.

Stop this nightmare.

"But that's not all." _Ellone's voice echoed, otherworldly, _"There's something else."

* * *

_You didn't love me then, you couldn't._

_You didn't know what love was. You were an abandoned child, never knowing anything other than what a Sorceress gave you._

_You traitor. You castoff. Reminder of how much we've bled, the one who made us bleed, how dare you?_

_You couldn't._

_You did._

"There is a reason why he's... gone. There was nothing you could do to save him." Ellone said.

_You always did and I..._

"Please, Quistis. You need to see this. You need to understand why this happened. Beyond Lea, there is a reason."

_And I always saw you, but never understood why you wouldn't... you served as good a man as Squall, why not?_

"Because he died for it."

_What is it, Elle?_

"I'll show you."

_Show me what?_

"The truth."

* * *

The scene changed.

On the other side of the piercing void, confined to the boundaries of the epicenter (a bubble of time, barely a second, stolen) the war.

More than that. So much more than just that, so much more than could be expressed with that three-letter word that had ruled Quistis' life since always.

_We are alive... _tears stung Quistis’ eyes as sadness came pouring out of her, _...look at us. Fighting to save everything._

She saw the struggle in their faces –in her own face. So young, young enough to die and old enough to never know.

She watched as the battle unfolded. That day of infamy, revealed as a desperate bid for the fate of creation, of the original sin pitted against latter-day sinners.

“You have to understand,” Ellone’s voice, soft and comforting, came, “, this is the day you won the war.”

"The Second..."

Ellone shook her head. "Not the second, Quistis. Not _a_ war - _the_ war."

“This...” Quistis swallowed hard, swallowed a lifetime of misery and pain traceable to this moment, “...Elle, this was twenty-five years ago.”

“Yes.” Ellone nodded, “And it’s now. Right now. And it’s almost a hundred years in the future. But this isn’t a memory. This is happening, right now. Well, sort of.”

“Sort of?” Quistis asked.

“We’re in a little... crack, let’s say. Between Time Compression and my ability to connect. We’re neither here nor there. See, this moment is not decided yet, not while you are in it. This, all of this... could have gone either way.”

Echoing, the Sorceress’ words.

** _“Time... it will not wait...”_ **

“We killed her.” Quistis said, “We...”

“No. You didn’t. You mortally wounded her. She followed Squall after that, when he lost his way. Followed him to the one place he escaped to when he thought he was alone and abandoned. Found his sanctuary. I think she wanted to kill him there, if she could. Take his life right where he felt the safest. But she couldn’t. She hadn’t enough strength left in her. You know what happened next.”

Quistis found herself unable to look away. As Squall retreated, making room for for Irvine to step forward and unleash a rapid barrage of pulse towards the Sorceress, backed by her own Micro Missiles, she remembered what it felt like to force the pace against the current.

“She gave Matron her powers...” Quistis said, “...to die in peace.”

“Yes. She was too weak to go on.”

“But... if this is happening now, what happens to us, it...“

“Will happen three generations from now. A hundred years.” Ellone said, “I’m not positive on the particulars, but don’t you see? This is the day you won the war.”

“You've said that. I know.”

Ellone shook her head. “But you don’t understand.” she said.

“Help me, then. Please.”

“This moment is, or rather was, undecided. This was her opening to change history, to change her fate. A small window of opportunity, nothing more and nothing less. This fight would decide. Because once Ultimecia passes her powers onto Matron, the circle is complete. There will be no more Sorceresses after this, because the power will be gone, lost in time. Lost in the loop. This, the war, is the end of the Sorceress. This is when SeeD fulfills its purpose.”

“But then... what happened...” Quistis forced herself to say the words, “...Rinoa, Matron, Elise...”

“Yes. That’s why you’re dying.” Ellone said, sorrow in her voice.

Echoes of a choir unheard, scattering into the nothingness.

** _“No matter... how hard you hold on.”_ **

“You are fighting a war that you won twenty-five years ago.” Ellone continued, her eyes taking in the scene of her family bleeding, “You are never going to win it. Not now, not again. You’re dying, one by one, because you will never get to fight this war again. Remember? The first and the final problem? The only thing you can do is surrender, to not fight. Because the Second Sorceress War was never won, Quistis. You defeated Ultimecia, and when you did, you sealed your fate. Now, she has to happen. She _must_. This must play out exactly how it did in your past and will in your future. But she believes... she believes she can change it. She has to believe. She has no other way out.”

“But this is the day we won. Isn’t that what you said?”

“Yes. You could’ve easily lost, but you won.”

“Is this how it ends?” Quistis asked, frustration aching in her voice, “Is this what we fought for? Is this – holy Hyne, is this what we died for?”

“Yes. I’m sorry.”

_Don’t say it, _Quistis thought.

“Ultimecia kills you." Ellone said, "Ultimately, eventually, but when it comes down to it... she kills you all, in time."

Voices in the heart of darkness, speaking in tongues of truth.

** _“It escapes you...”_ **

“But the worst part is,” Ellone sighed, “She wasn’t evil. She didn’t want to compress time to become the new ruler of all creation. She just wanted to live. When she got her powers, she saw through time and saw her fate, dying in the hands of SeeD. She saw that she wouldn’t survive if she was a Sorceress. But she couldn’t _not_ be the Sorceress, not after.”

“Then why do all this?” Quistis asked, "Why!?"

“She wants to remake the universe so that things turn out differently. In other words...”

Quistis hung her head, “...she wants to undo the original sin.”

“Yes. Each Sorceress has one. She wants to undo the one that starts it all. To change history.”

“She can’t. No-one can.”

“Can’t she? Due to the nature of the spell, she had the means. She could use it to do what nobody can – she could have changed the past.”

A scream rung out in the background and scattered into the void.

“Besides,” Ellone continued. “she would not destroy the universe, no. I think she wanted just to go back in time, to Rhea in King Zebalga’s camp and stop her from eating the flesh. If she did that, she would have undone the Sorceress... and with her, history. The world you knew would have ceased to exist. A new world would be born –or it would have always been there- and you, me, all the remnants... we’d be absorbed into it. But she, having undone the world, would have remained the same. That is the true meaning of Time Compression.”

Quistis felt the weight of the words as she had felt the blast that had disfigured her, all those years ago. A slow burning devastation. The very possibility was an abomination to her and every cell in her body rebelled against the notion. She rejected it, but at the same time, couldn’t deny that there were a thousand lives in which she had not suffered as she had.

But accepting this... it meant denying everything that had brought her to that moment.

Accepting it meant death.

“No.” Quistis said, “She can’t. It’s impossible. You can’t undo the original sin.”

“She never will, now.” Ellone said, with a hint of sadness in her voice, “You stopped her.”

“What gives her the right...?” Quistis hissed, fists clenched, “What gives her the right to do this? To do this to _us?_ How many thousands had to die for her bid to live? To sustain her existence, to let her continue her reign? Because isn’t that what she is – the tyrant? The monster? Didn’t she come from beyond time, with the gifts she had passed on for the peace she didn’t fucking deserve, just to kill us before this? Before all of this? And for what? All of it, for fucking _what!? What were we fighting for!?”_

“It’s not like that.” Ellone said, one hand reaching out, to touch her shoulder, to calm her orphan sister down, “I-it’s not-“

“No.” Quistis spat, her throaty growl full of hatred, “No. Not this time.”

A grin crept onto her face. Ellone felt her blood run cold at the viciousness of it – bloodthirsty, wild and enjoying the savagery of the emotion behind it.

“Because I know where we are.” Quistis said. As Ellone watched, her chain whip started to materialize, seemingly out of thin air. First the handle, then the links in the chain, one by one, as if pulled out of nothing.

Ellone’s eyes flew wide open.

_Not out of nothing. Out of time._

“This is where you met her.” Quistis said as the links went on, stretching towards the blade, “That’s it, isn’t it? That little crack between Time Compression and your power, like you said. But we’re here, which means...”

“Quistis, don’t.” Ellone said as the scythe at the end of the weapon materialized, blood still fresh on its blade, glowing bright red in the darkness, “Please, you have to understand...”

“...I can cross over.”

“Quistis, no-“

Quistis broke into a run, propelled by pure hatred, and a war cry tore its way out of her throat. The chain whip a storm around her, circling with cold metal precision, preparing to strike. As she dashed across the void, towards the war, Ellone reached out as if to stop her and screamed in despair, begging to be heard:

_“You can’t change the past!”_

Her words echoed, mixing in with the monstrous weight of the Sorceress’.

**_“And...”_**

* * *

_You vile abomination. You affront to all existence._

_You fucking witch._

_I will end you._

_You monster._

_Do you think the monster you’ve made out of me is any lesser than you?_

_I am bigger now, I am stronger, I am better than I ever was and I will stop you._

_I will kill you here. I will kill you now._

_You will never make it to our childhood home, you will never infect our mother with your immortal disease._

_You’re dead. _ _You are so fucking dead._

_You monster._

_Oh, you monster._

_You’ve killed us all._

* * *

Squall tore himself away from the sight and got up, bringing his gunblade to bear as Rinoa, still in Ultimecia’s clutches, screamed bloody murder and hurled every spell she had at her disposal at the abomination. Quistis slipped in, chain whip ready.

For a moment, time seemed to slow down. Quistis beheld Squall as she never had before and in a moment of clarity, she saw his despair. How tired he was, how close he was to laying down his arms and surrendering. She saw his cold, blue eyes weary and hollow, his clenched teeth signaling the precipice he had spent his entire life careening over. The thin line between fighting the war and surrendering the fight, in the way he braced himself for one last strike. One last blow.

As he did, Quistis looked down... and she stopped. 

* * *

There, suspended in the gaping maw of the spell, emerging from the sickening gash that was Ultimecia’s abdomen was the truth. Pale, her ashen hair lost in the sway of a breeze that was not there and had been there forever, her body bound by the crimson strands and blood-blue veins, was the truth. Her eyes, wide open, looking into Quistis’ soul. The apocalypse: revelation itself, confined to a silent cry that Squall had just chosen to ignore.

In Ultimecia’s eyes, Quistis saw Ellone’s words find meaning.

The woman behind the Sorceress, bound to her own abominable form, ensnared by her own nature, struggling against the looms of fate that had once shown her what would come, was begging silently.

_Help me. Please, help me. It’s fate. I can’t break away. I can’t get away. I don’t want to die. Please, help me. Save me. Save me. Have mercy, please._

Tears stung in Quistis’ eyes as she saw the eyes of the enemy. It was like looking into a mirror: blind despair at being cornered. The inescapable, inevitable existence of an enemy that never relented, that never stopped, that just kept coming and coming. Giving no quarter, showing no mercy.

Like seeing her reflection in the mirror.

_It’s fate, _the woman kept repeating_, I can’t break away. I can’t get away. It’s fate._

In her head, that old military rhyme, fresh as the day it had gotten her through death – _and when they come for me..._

_...and they came. Every day, they came and every day, I fought and I bled and I died. Every day, and time, _Quistis sobbed, _oh, time, it will not wait. No matter how hard you hold on, it escapes you, and..._

Above, the Sorceress’ final words, her death knell.

**_“...it swallows you whole.”_**

* * *

Quistis came to with her cheek pressed against the linoleum floor of the morgue. The chill of the room, cold like surgical steel, was inside her. She blinked and saw Ellone’s face, a little ways away and still asleep.

In the slab, overhead, Seifer’s body. What was left of the man she loved and the war she had fought all her life.

She pushed the ground and stood up. The dimly-lit, dirty white surroundings took her in. The whole world felt dead and still.

She looked down at Ellone. She looked so peaceful, lying there, eyes closed and fast asleep. Untouched by everything that had followed them their entire lives. Always in the company of soldiers, she had been the safest person on the planet all along.

Quistis let her sleep a little longer. She deserved that rest. 

* * *

Quistis stumbled out of the morgue and leaned against the wall. The toll the vision, the truth had taken weighed heavy on her shoulders.

Her comm-link buzzed before she could start thinking. By reflex, she clicked it.

"Grand Master."

_"...I'm sorry for your loss."_

Quistis' eyes flared open. The Sorceress.

"How did you get on this line?"

_"I took his communicator."_

_Of course you fucking did, you fucking-_

Quistis pushed it down. In her head, she remembered the first and final problem: that the Sorceress, when killed, would be reborn. How would one hope to win against an opponent that could never be killed?

_"The only way to win is to not fight."_

"What do you want?" Quistis asked, "Haven't you done enough already?"

_"..yes, I have."_

Silence.

_"I am at the Sorceress Memorial. I will not leave. If you want to come get me..."_

"No." Quistis said, "Enough is enough."

_"...what?"_

"I surrender."


	16. Desired Point of Impact

**(Day 37. The war ends.)**

* * *

The barrels of the defense batteries encircling the Sorceress Memorial whined, the noise lost in the wind as they rotated slowly and locked onto target – a solitary woman, dressed in her pure white dress uniform, walking calmly towards the entrance. The automated systems had been given the command to ignore this figure, as well as the one already inside the structure, and so they did, but they still kept a close watch on her as she walked on.

Quistis heard her own footfalls echo, like stones skipping on the ground as her combat boots crunched on the dry, cracked soil. The medals adorning her chest felt heavy and her Odineum chain whip, looped around its clasp on her belt, felt like a burden than a comfort. Its blade, sharpened to perfection, hung without a gleam under the bleak, gray skies above the Sorceress Memorial.

The stairs that drew closer with every step she took forward were white, pure and untouched. Quistis felt something get stuck in her throat. Gentle hands of the past, choking her. Her mind’s eye created a double vision and she blinked. There he was: riddled with holes, dead in a pool of his own blood, his white uniform painted red. Cold and still, in her arms, where she had always thought of him. At the end of a war of attrition they had called life, victorious.

No, not victorious. Surrendered.

She started to ascend. Every step she took, she felt weaker. The ghosts that she was so scared of as a little girl encircled her as she, begging for their due felt like chains wrapped around her soul – like the looms of fate binding Ultimecia. They wanted what they were owed.

_I did my duty. That is all you’ll ever get from me._

She blinked and the note attached to the mirror, reflecting the sole bystander to another defeat snatched from the jaws of victory – herself.

_What else could I have done? All I know is how to fight. A SeeD isn’t supposed to surrender._

To the first level now. One more flight of steps and she’d be at the entrance. Quistis looked up.

_She’s waiting for me._

Squall’s original sin seemed like another life to her as she began to mbcli again, but she felt that it still hung over the place like a curse. She wondered if he could have guessed what he was damning himself and the rest of the world to when he had rushed in blindly to rescue Rinoa. Had he hesitated at all? Had he remembered the most basic tenet of his existence as a SeeD, that the Sorceress was the enemy? Had he struggled, at least for a moment, between his duty and what his entire, dysfunctional being was screaming at him to do?

Quistis found herself unable to wonder what would have happened if he had just let her go. The world as it was had swallowed everything.

_I wonder if he hesitated at all._

* * *

Around her, the machinery hummed. The lights overhead, reflecting off of the shiny, chrome surfaces of the devices, the wires, cables and plugs also illuminated the fog. The room was colder than it normally would be and the mist issuing forth from the open mouth of the sealing chamber obscured all but the nearest objects. The monument to Dr. Odine’s twisted genius, the chamber, like a star lodged in the heart of the Memorial, was left open on her request, as a mockery, a show of superiority. Her back to the wall, she was still victorious.

It set her teeth on edge.

Even that aberrant mutant Adel had failed where Lea had succeeded. To stand where she was standing now, in the shrine SeeD had consecrated with layers upon layers upon layers of defenses to protect the only sealing chamber in existence, the only one that ever would be since the loss of Odine’s original research and designs, took more than just power, she knew. It took more than just black magic.

It took everything.

But Lea didn’t want this, any of this. When she had called Quistis, she had been hiding in an apartment whose occupants had been lost between the jaws of a particularly vicious Grendel. She had chosen the Sorceress Memorial for the surrender to take place and had even called news stations to see if they could cover it - she wanted someone to bear witness to her victory, however unwilling.

ENN could. So she had invited them and they had attended in the form of a small, flying drone camera.

All eyes on her. Lea couldn’t deny that being seen after all this time had its own thrill to offer, no matter how hollow, but in the end, she was a reluctant victor. She couldn’t help but feel disappointed that they had failed. They were SeeD. More than that, the last of the Fated Children. The stories and the autobiographies and the interviews and the whispered legends all told her that they would best her.

She had wanted to go down fighting, not fight them and win her little war.

Lea breathed calmly as Quistis emerged from the entrance and scattered her thoughts. She was all dressed up in her clean uniform. Regal and proud, even in defeat. But in her eyes, Lea saw what she thought she would never see – the Grand Master was brought to her knees, pretending to stand.

Quistis came to a halt three steps from her. Lea barely held back an apology as she saw the Grand Master brace herself, hatred still burning bright in her weary, bright blue eyes.

A camera drone buzzed overhead and hung above them. Lea could almost hear the wireless transmission sent to every receiver on the planet – the sound of the visual.

“Sorceress Lea.”

“Grand Master.”

“State your intent.” Lea couldn’t hold back a sigh, “For the record.”

Quistis took a deep breath. It felt easier than she had anticipated.

“I, Quistis Trepe, Grand Master of Ocean Garden and all its territories, hereby declare that we will cease all hostilities against Sorceress Lea, effective immediately. I surrender.”

_The only way to win against an unbeatable enemy is to not fight._

Lea’s lips half-parted to reveal a sad smile.

“I accept your surrender.” she said, “Do you have any conditions you wish to put forward before I tell you mine?”

The gleam in the Sorceress’ eyes, that resigned, self-assured melancholy irked Quistis, triggering something deep inside her. She pushed it down with all her might, using every ounce of willpower she had to silence it, but the sight of Seifer’s lifeless body, Y-incision revealing his beautiful insides, broke the levee. It overflowed, unstoppable, carrying with it every single inch of bastard ground given over the years.

_A SeeD isn’t supposed to surrender._

“Yes.” Quistis said, her voice calm as her fingers caressed the chain of her whip, “Just one.”

Lea opened her arms, as if to question.

“Which is?”

Quistis drew so fast that the drone camera recording the motion registered the frame-by-frame rendition of the act as a blur. A flash and her whip unfurled, the elongated chain immediately whipping around in graceful circles and the scythe shot forward, missing Lea’s shoulder. Quistis half-turned and pulled. The blade, faithful, returned before Lea could move or respond.

The Odineum blade sliced through Lea’s right arm effortlessly, severing it at the elbow. Blood came spurting forth as the limb, now useless, fell onto the railing below.

Before the pain could even register, Quistis threw a kick and her boot sunk into Lea’s chest, knocking the air out of her. Quistis tugged at the chain of her whip, making the blade trace an arc in the air behind her as she pointed at the Sorceress.

_“Silence!”_

Lea opened her mouth and Quistis bent forward to kick the scythe towards her. The blade went forward, straight as a spear and missed her neck by a hair’s breadth, which was when Quistis slid her elbow under the chain and tugged again. The scythe’s weight caused it to spin and move around the Sorceress.

Lea’s arm was on fire. Her mouth was open to scream, but her vocal chords, arrested by the spell, that imitation magic, wouldn’t let her. She couldn’t draw in enough breath and her vision was blurred.

Quistis’ kick caught her in the face and broke her nose once more. She felt the disgusting crunch of the shattering cartilage echo in her skull as the chain of Quistis’ weapon tripped her. The ground shifted, sending Lea back, her arm flailing and stump spraying blood. Quistis’ hand came out of nowhere and grabbed her by the throat, stopping her just short of the ground. Her thumb dug into the skin under her chin.

Quistis cracked the whip and pulled, sending the chain scattering. The scythe shot forward and Quistis caught it while pushing Lea, her elbow to the Sorceress’ chest.

Lea flailed about weakly, trying to find a moment’s mercy to move.

They crossed the threshold and Quistis raised her knee, pushing against Lea’s stomach to take that final, short leap into the mouth of the sealing chamber.

Lea’s back collided with the interior. She heard a scream, bestial, tearing its way Quistis’ throat as she plunged the blade of her chain whip deep into the Sorceress’ heart, impaling her.

Blood came rushing forth, both from the new arterial wound and the stump arm, washing over Quistis. She felt it as she would the summer rain – warm droplets, thick and rich, coloring her face, her hair, wetting the fabric her uniform, coating her medals. Quistis screamed again, into her ear, teeth bared and her anguish coating everything into itself and she twisted the blade, feeling flesh and muscle and sinew and bone tear in the wake of her fury.

Quistis screamed again and tears came pouring out of her eyes, mixing in with the tainted blood of the Sorceress, her enemy.

Lea choked. She gurgled, blood filling her punctured lung and her body spasmed. Quistis remained there, pressed up against her, as if embracing her, one hand still in the blade. She felt the warmth of the dying Sorceress’ cheek on hers and held her like a friend, like a lover.

Her beloved enemy. Her one beloved enemy.

Quistis exhaled. She felt like she had been holding her breath forever. She closed in and embraced the choking, dying Sorceress one last time, for old time’s sake.

She moved to whisper in her ear.

“I win...” her breath came out in ragged gasps, “Do you hear me..? Can you still..? I ..._**I** win_.”

Quistis pushed Lea, her clothes already reluctant to part, sticking to her with her blood as the glue. She pulled out the blade, eliciting a gurgled sound from her. Lea’s eyes, full of suffering, looked up from behind bloodstained bangs at Quistis and in the place of that malevolent gleam she had seen earlier, Quistis saw a plea for mercy.

"No." she said. She stepped off the chamber and onto the platform. “You should’ve though about this when you killed him. But you Sorceresses... you never think, do you?”

She turned away. She went to the control console. She knew the sequence. With hands soaked in red, she typed it in. The screen asked her if she was certain. Quistis glanced sideways at Lea, twitching and writhing, her suffering clear and forever.

“Nobody is going to find you. I’ll make sure you are buried with him. This is his victory too, and I would never take that away. Not from him. No... not from him.”

She pushed the button. With a hiss and a metallic whine, the doors of the ceiling chamber closed. Quistis grabbed her whip and rolled it up. She hung it on the clasp on her belt. The scythe was still dripping when the chamber sealed.

The console beeped the countdown for the sequence. The cryo-tubes around Quistis whirred to life, the wires buzzing with power. The entire Sorceress Memorial seemed to vibrate, coming alive around her.

She knew what it was called. Lea’s pleading eyes and limp body inside the rapidly-freezing chamber had a name: the watershed victory.

The chamber announced the end of the process with a sharp bleep. Quistis watched as the armored, multi-layered glass display of the chamber was riddled with ice crystals. She approached and looked in. Wrapped in the white vapor, nestled in the heart of the cryo-prison was Lea’s eyes, clear, beautiful and begging in vain for an end to her agony.

“Sweet dreams.”

Quistis turned her back on her and walked away. 

* * *

Quistis emerged from the Sorceress Memorial calm and more content than she had ever been. She stood in the same spot Brea had before killing Squall and gazed into the distance. Beyond the range of the defense batteries was the hovercraft that had carried her there.

Ellone was waiting, she knew.

* * *

Ellone’s hands cupped over her mouth as she let out a strangled gasp.

Quistis was covered in red. Her face, her uniform, her weapon, her hands... her clothes were a bit disheveled, but nothing was out of place or torn. Her medals, bloodstained and proud, still clung to her chest. But her posture and her steps told Ellone that she wasn’t wounded. Not physically, anyway.

Quistis stopped, three steps short of her and the hovercraft.

“Wh...” Ellone tried to speak, but the words didn’t seem to be there, “What... wh-wh-wh-what d-did you..?”

“It’s over, Elle.” Quistis said. She let out a choked chuckle. “I won. I... fucking... _fucking_ _won_.” She began to laugh. She threw her head back and howled with wild abandon and endless euphoria, laughing at the end of everything and the end of everything she had ever held dear. Her scream scattered into the open space and was cast into the wind.

As Ellone watched her laugh, Quistis’ her lip quivered and tears began to stream down her face, marking their path through the drying blood. Ellone felt her heart break as her sister, victorious, wept openly at her triumph.

“Oh Hyne...” Quistis sobbed, one hand covering her eyes, trying to wipe away the tears that kept coming, “Oh Hyne... Oh _Great Hyne_...”

Ellone rushed forward and embraced her. Quistis sobbed into her shoulder and cried, screaming, for every moment of her life that had brought her there and every scar she would bear for the rest of her days.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While it seems an obvious solution to the first and final problem, i.e. taking the Sorceress out of the equation completely, they have hardly been in a position to do so before this point, not to mention finding the method too inhumane (as Squall has said at the end of "Terra Rosa.")


	17. The Survivor

**(Day 404)**

**1 YEAR AFTER THE WATERSHED VICTORY**

* * *

The sun was shining brightly, brilliant rays bathing the landscape of Esthar City, still wounded but recovering, in vibrant colors. The pastel palette that Quistis had gotten used to viewing for the missing and broken parts seemed different, somehow, as if the rest had grown enough to overshadow the shadows. The open window let in fresh, cool air that was more than welcome in her bedroom.

Her bedroom.

For a moment, Quistis felt nothing but amazement and spite at the fact that a day like this could exist. She felt disgust and relief towards the fact that a day like this still existed for her.

Something inside her smothered this small bit of optimism. She imagined Seifer, leaning against the wall, arms crossed.

_What are you doing?_

“Mourning you.”

_Yeah, and who asked you to do that?_

“You’ve been gone a year, and already I’m thinking of this as my room, my home.”

_Isn’t it, though?_

“No.”

_Then?_

“It was _ours._ Yours and mine. And now you’re gone and I hate that I feel...”

_What? Say it, Quist. Don’t keep it down._

“It’s a beautiful day today.”

_Then why bury yourself here? Is this supposed to be your home or your grave?_

“Can’t it be both?”

_Not on your fucking life. Why didn’t you really surrender if all you were going to do was to sit here and mope about it like a teenaged Squall?_

Quistis smiled and sighed. “He was so adorable when he did that.”

_I’ll take your word for that one. So why not?_

“They’re expecting me to say something, to make a scene of it. To tell them what I did was for the glory of... something. Or act like it never happened, I don’t know.”

_But you know they’re expecting something._

“I’m the last of the Fated Children. I’m the survivor. Of course they do.”

_Why does that mean you have to feel like you didn’t make it?_

“Because I am the only one that did. I’m...” Quistis hesitated, “I’m all alone out here. I have no-one.”

_Doesn’t mean you have to be lonely._

“It’s not enough... it’s just not enough.”

_Look out that window. It’s a beautiful day. You are allowed to enjoy days like this. You are allowed to feel happy, or content. You don’t have to cry into my combat jacket every night and feel miserable all the time to be the survivor. You’ll do all that, too. You’ll feel it all._

“I don’t want to face them.”

_They want the Grand Master Trepe? How about this - give them Quistis. You really want them to see something, let them see the woman behind the uniform. ‘cause she’s one hell of a woman._

“And when did you get so wise, smartass?”

_You’re talking to yourself, honey. I’m dead._

“Not to me.”

_Then get dressed... go and have a day off. The witch is dead, Quist. She will stay dead until it’s time for her to die. You did your part. Now go and enjoy your victory._

* * *

Eyes followed her as she walked. It was the outfit for most – one of the very few civilian clothes she had in her closet. Dark wash jeans fitting on her well-toned legs. The plain, gray t-shirt. The black flip flops, in lieu of any kind of footwear. The scars lining her skin, marking occasions that some had read about and some gossiped about. That she was self-conscious about. She felt exposed, walking amongst the cadets and the SeeDs without her uniform, without the shield wall of the Grand Master... and without her cane. She felt a profound sense of déjà-vu as she filled the void of that reminder with her deck of Triple Triad cards.

Decades ago, she had come into the Garden wounded, knowing of the world only that it had taken her mother and father from her. She had scarred as she had stayed there, having had to fight tooth and nail to, above all else, keep pieces of herself that she had desperately tried to keep away from the grinding jaws of the war machine. The shards of just-Quistis that she had tried to preserve.

Yes, she had come in wounded and had scarred as she had stayed, but in that moment, striding through the deafening silence that followed her wake into the main level of what was now Esthar Garden, she felt that she would be leaving intact. Whole.

From out of the corner of her elliptically-framed glasses she saw the glares, the slack jaws, the cupped hands daring to whisper into ears. She picked out a group of four by a bench. Unmistakable, that hunched-over posture, those crossed legs, that 3x3 board. She smiled. The cadets looked young, younger than she remembered she had ever been, and so she thought they would be playing by the Garden rules, most likely. Excellent.

She felt the weight of the deck that she held instead of her cane profoundly as she walked over to them. All her friends and all her family were Triple Tried cards now, artfully illustrated portraits, frozen in time; waiting to be dealt, played with and to change hands. It felt like fate.

The group began to tense up as she approached.

“Garden rules?” Quistis asked.

The cadets didn’t respond.

“Then what?”

“Garden Rules.” A girl said.

“Open included?”

“Yes.”

“Anyone up for a challenge?” Quistis planted a lopsided, cock smile onto her face, hoping to goad them.

“No fuckin’ way.” One of the boys said, “No offense, sir, but you used to be King of the Card Club. I know how good you are... and what cards you hold?”

“I’ll stake myself.” Quistis fished out her own card and demonstrated it. Their eyes went wide as saucers. There was no higher stake. If they won, they would get bragging rights until the end of time and Quistis would be defrocked, so to speak. Nobody lost their own card and then claimed superiority.

“You know what?” the girl rolled her shoulders back and sat up straighter, “I’ll take you on.”

Quistis grinned.

“You’ll be sorry.” She said and she sat down, "Let's play."


	18. Epilogue

**ASCENSION**

**(Day 35,970)**

* * *

The hum of the machinery around her felt ominous somehow, as if murmuring mysterious portends in a language that Artemisia couldn’t understand. She spoke in many tongues, some long since forgotten and some still in the vernacular, but didn’t speak machine-code. To speak to something, it would have to have a beating heart, at least. Machines didn’t have hearts, she knew.

Well, maybe except for this one.

At the end of the path was the one machine with a still-beating heart. The reports, Artemisia knew, would list her as the “organic component in containment.” It was a cold, heartless way of describing the still-beating heart of the sealing chamber... the Sorceress.

Her heart started beating faster as she approached, cautious steps bearing her full weight with every centimeter advanced towards the cryogenic behemoth, her pulse beating in her temples.

The computer bleeped as she approached. The console to her right hissed and a small petri dish emerged. The top slid open and the screen flashed.

**INPUT SAMPLE FOR AUTHORIZATION.**

Artemisia took the vial out and felt the guilt for the second time. It passed as she popped off the top and poured a single droplet in. The petri dish retreated. The sample was scanned and accepted. The console came to life, unlocking its functions.

Artemisia’s heart was beating faster each passing second.

With a loud groan, the machines around her whirred to life and the console started displaying stats, including a time counter of years, months, days, hours, minutes and seconds. Underneath it were several menus that Artemisia busied herself browsing through. The mechanic groans reverberated in the enclosed space as the Seal was brought forward. Artemisia glanced at it. There, beyond the frozen glass was the opaque silhouette of Sorceress Lea, the organic component in containment.

Artemisia returned to the menus and that was when she felt that familiar presence. She glanced towards the exit. She could almost make out her form in the light bleeding in through the entrance. Ellone Loire, of course.

“I know you were following me.” She said, smiling, “I’ve read your diary. I know what you thought about all of this. That my only way out of my fate is through it. But you were wrong. That’s why I can change it. I never understood why until now. But I can. It doesn’t have to be the way it was, the way it will be.”

Artemisia’s fingers danced on the console and she pulled up the sealing mechanism. She tapped on a few tabs and the seal hissed in response. 

“All this time, and we never knew why this place was in lockdown, just that it was. Like the Garden Coup – not until it was too late. A sin for a sin.”

Vapor filled the chamber and the temperature dropped almost instantly as the seal opened up, its various locking mechanisms extending, blooming outwards.

“I’m going to change it.” Artemisia said, “I’m going to win the war.”

Artemisia turned her back on Ellone. She felt her reach out, but ignored it. She took two steps towards the seal. She stopped.

There, encased in the ice was the shattered body of Sorceress Lea. Her right arm was gone. The ice around her torso was covered in red and from where she stood, Artemisia could see the gaping wound, the fatal blow.

“Peace is ephemeral, war is forever.” Artemisia said, “But if I make it, and I’m going to, there will be no war.”

She stepped forward and looked Sorceress Lea dead in the eye. She saw a plea in those eyes - an agony suspended in time and cut off from the world, hopelessly reaching out.

_Please, _her eyes said, _please save me._

“It’s alright.” Artemisia said, “It’s okay. You can rest now. I’ll take your burdens.”

Ellone Loire screamed in the background, a distant echo.

“No.” Artemisia said curtly, “She deserves her rest. I can help her. I can help us all. I can save this world, and myself, before it falls off the precipice.”

Lea’s eyes relaxed, but for a second and then, her eyelids closed. A brilliant white light emerged from her dead body, thin strands of it reaching out like tendrils. It lingered for a moment before shooting forth and impaling Artemisia. Pain erupted all across her body and she screamed as the essence of Sorceress’ past tore into her. Her eyes flew open as her head fell back and then...

She saw it.

_Time, _she thought, seeing the looms unravel and the branches of paths never taken and times never lived crumble to dust, rushing on and on with no regard to her, or anything of her– _it will not wait._

She saw the truth laid bare before her eyes and the war of ages, that day of infamy, always happening and condensed into a single moment and eternity, pure possibility unraveled and wound up again. She tried to hold onto the moment to see into it, but it slipped through her fingers, vanishing into the stream of pure power, of black magic energy.

_No matter how hard you hold on._

Artemisia saw herself tangled up in the threads – she tried to wriggle free, struggled against the shackles of fate, strained against what was set in stone but found no purchase as time, merciless and free, ran out, moment by moment by moment...

_It escapes you..._

The light dimmed and vanished and dragged Artemisia to her knees. The metal grating under her knees was cold and hard and she heard her own breathing, heavy, in the relative silence. She glanced trough her hair and into the chamber.

Sorceress Lea was no longer breathing. There was nothing but silence in the seal.

Artemisia pushed the ground and stood up. She steadied herself, took a moment to allow the dizziness to pass. Once it did, she turned to face Ellone.

The look on her face was one of resigned sorrow. Artemisia stared her down, defiant.

“I am...” she said, “...Ultimecia.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you are reading this, having gone through the entire ordeal, I salute you and thank you.


End file.
